AI companies are hungry for data centers, but Americans are opposed to them being near them

There is a growing backlash against building on-premises data centers, which consume huge amounts of electricity for computing and water for cooling in order to power artificial intelligence. According to a recent Gallup poll7 in 10 (71%) Americans oppose building a new AI data center in their area, with nearly half (48%) saying they strongly oppose.

Data centers have attracted increased scrutiny and resistance, with concerns about water shortages, noise, air pollution, and the drain on land and energy resources. Communities across the United States have Protest the new constructionCalls for a moratorium and ban have increased.

This is the first Gallup poll on data centers. The findings highlight some of the reasons Americans oppose it, including environmental impacts, e.g Energy and water consumptiontops the list. Other reasons include concerns about quality of life, the effects that data centers may have on facility construction, pollution, and negative opinions about artificial intelligence itself.

Another question asked survey participants about their attitudes toward building a nuclear power plant to generate electricity. Nuclear power plants are viewed more favorably than data centers, with 53% opposing them.

Those who favor data centers in their area cited economic benefits, such as job opportunities and tax revenue, and technological benefits, such as meeting demand for artificial intelligence technology.

Data center race

The data center race is being led by companies at the forefront of AI technology – OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Anthropic and others – as they vie for control of the industry. For its part, Nvidia dominates the AI ​​chip market, providing high-performance GPUs and CPUs that fill data centers.

The AI ​​race has become so competitive that there is talk of building data centers in space (eg SpaceX’s Elon Musk has suggested), In the sea And even in People’s backyards. Anthropic and SpaceX more recently Major data center deal signed This would boost data efforts in space, and Google is also rumored to be doing so Working on partnership With the rocket maker

These deals are driven by growing demand for apps, streaming TV and other data, but primarily because of the processing power required for artificial intelligence, including popular large language models, or LLMs. Chat botssuch as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

To achieve this, data centers are expanding their capacity or are being newly built, in some cases on a massive scale. One proposal is in Utah The project, which has sparked public outrage, will be twice the size of Manhattan and will require more electricity than the entire state uses. This $100 billion proposal, called Project Stratos, is… Powered in part by Kevin O’Leary of Shark TankWhich he said would create 10,000 job opportunities. Locals They pushed back Against O’Leary’s comments about the project, incl His claim The demonstrators against the project were transported by buses.

A A recent Politico story reported One data center in Georgia used 30 million gallons of water without initially paying for its use.

Doubts about the economic benefits of data centers

Post recently Poll by YouGov It found that 71% of Americans believe the pace of AI development is too fast, while 64% expressed doubt that AI will create economic gains that benefit everyone.

A The Brookings report was released earlier this month The employment impacts study found that data centers could create new jobs, but the employment potential is greatly overestimated by local governments and AI companies. Unlike factories, data centers operate more like warehouses for computers running on expensive chips, and many of the jobs associated with data centers are temporary during the construction phase.

Many critics of AI say that AI infrastructure proposals should include more energy-efficient measures to mitigate the heavy environmental footprint, and that more research is needed on the long-term health and economic impacts on local communities.