New poll: voters in both parties hate AI data centers

Six in ten voters now say no to a data center in their own backyard. A New York Times and Siena College poll released Sept 15 found that opposition crosses party lines. Republicans and Democrats agree on almost nothing about AI. They agree on this.

The poll didn't ask about AI broadly. It asked about data centers, the giant warehouses of computers that run AI. Those buildings use huge amounts of electricity and water. Nearby residents often see their utility bills rise first, before they see any benefit. That's likely why opposition is so lopsided. It's not an abstract fear of robots. It's a concrete complaint about a noisy, power-hungry building going up next door.

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Will this actually slow AI down? Not yet. Cancellation rates for contested projects are rising. But companies are responding by picking friendlier locations, not by building fewer data centers overall. The bigger question is what happens once nearly every easy site is taken. At some point, the industry runs out of places where nobody objects.