Data Center Opinion Monitor

The Cost of Public Opposition to Data Centers

Is Public Support For Sale? What Americans Would Charge to Accept a Data Center Next Door

When people think about what it takes to build a data center, they usually think of four material resources: energy, land, water, and network infrastructure. Our research introduces a fifth constraint, one that is often overlooked but increasingly decisive: public sentiment.

When people think about data centers and the resources that afford their development, they usually think in terms of four material resources: energy, land, water, and network infrastructure. In this research, we introduce an often overlooked but increasingly deterministic constraint: public sentiment. We characterize public support as a true resource that affords - or constrains - data center construction in the same way that energy or water availability can. In study 1, we quantified the cost of public sentiment.

Tech companies will have to reckon with public opinion to keep expanding - and public support is shaping up to be costly and scarce. To what extent can public support be secured in the same way that a tech company would secure a water rights agreement? In other words, is public support for sale? And if so, how much does it cost? To find out, we conducted a nationwide survey of more than 3,200 American adults First, we mapped the size and scope of public opinion toward data centers by asking participants to rate how they would feel about a data center being built near them, then describe their thinking in an open-response item. Next, we asked participants to name the price on their support.

Opposition is fierce. And it doesn’t map onto political party.

We asked a nationally representative sample of 3,234 Americans how they would feel about a data center being built in their local community. Two in three Americans (66%) oppose a data center being built in their local area, and less than 1 in 5 support one. This is a dramatic change from just as recently as 6 months prior to this survey, when a Pew survey reported 39% of the public in opposition to a local data center. A March 2025 survey documented only 29% opposition to a local data center, meaning that opposition has risen by more than 120% in just over a year.

66% of Americans oppose data centers in their local area

A bar graph showing responses to the following survey question: "Overall, would you favor or oppose the construction of a new data center in your local area to support artificial intelligence, or AI, technology?" Orange = Strongly Oppose; Light Orange = Somewhat Oppose; Yellow = No Opinion; Gray = Somewhat Favor; Dark Blue = Strongly Favor. The graph shows that “Strongly Oppose” was by far the most common response at 45%, and that total opposition from respondents was 66%.

Surprisingly, we find that opposition doesn’t follow the typical party lines. In today’s political climate, Republicans and Democrats agree on very little, but distaste for local data centers appears to be one of those rare points of consensus. Democrats lead the opposition and Republicans are somewhat less opposed, but across party lines, a majority of respondents oppose a data center coming to their community.

Across party lines, most people oppose local data center builds.

Three bar graphs measure the responses to the following survey question: “Overall, would you favor or oppose the construction of a new data center in your local area to support artificial intelligence, or AI, technology?” Orange = Strongly Oppose; Light Orange = Somewhat Oppose; Yellow = No Opinion; Gray = Somewhat Favor; Dark Blue = Strongly Favor. The graphs measure how respondents from three different groups responded: “Democrats,” “Independents,” and “Republicans.” Taken together, the graphs show all three groups are mostly in opposition. Opposition was strongest from Democrats, followed by Independents, and then Republicans.

The same holds across age groups. Opposition runs high among young adults, but it isn’t limited to them: across generations, most people oppose a local data center.

Opposition unites across generations.

Four bar graphs measure the responses to the following survey question: “Overall, would you favor or oppose the construction of a new data center in your local area to support artificial intelligence, or AI, technology?” Orange = Strongly Oppose; Light Orange = Somewhat Oppose; Yellow = No Opinion; Gray = Somewhat Favor; Dark Blue = Strongly Favor. The graphs measure how respondents from four different groups responded: “18-29,” “30-49,” and “50-64,” and “65+.” Taken together, the graphs show that all four

We also asked participants to rate how much each of five factors influenced their view: quality of life for local residents, local economic effects, AI development, environmental effects, and effects on local resources. The vast majority weighed all five, and that was true for supporters and opponents alike. In other words, people weren’t driven by a single concern; they were weighing many at once. Whether they support or oppose, data centers are a hot-button issue that brings a wide range of costs and benefits to mind.

Data centers aren’t a one-button issue.

Two bar graphs measure the number of factors two groups, “Supporters” and “Opposers” weighed when deciding their opposition or support for data center construction in their locality. Respondents were asked the following survey question: “To what extent did each of the following factors influence your judgment? Quality of life for local residents; local economic effects; AI development; environmental effects; effects on local resources.” The graphs measure the “Percent that considers blank number of factors in opinion,” measuring the percentage on their x axes and number of factors considered (in a range from 1 to 5) on their y axes. They show that close to 80% of both “Supporters” and “Opposers” considered five factors, and that “98% of sentiment was multidimensional.”

Next, we asked an open-ended question about why people feel the way they do about data centers. We found that supporters tended to talk about the potential economic benefits and other civic opportunities. For opposers, concerns about the environment were most prominently on their mind. Among supporters, the three most common words were: jobs, community, future. Among opposers: water, resources, and environment.

Republican and Democratic opponents also used largely the same words to describe their thinking. That is striking: the two parties have disagreed on environmental policy for decades, yet opposition to data centers has them speaking the same language.

Opposition yields uniquely bipartisan agreement.

Radar chart of the “Most common opposition words and their rate of use across political parties” in this survey. It measures how responses differed between “Republicans,” represented by red, and “Democrats,” represented by blue. The chart shows significant overlap in most common words, with the most popular words being “water” and “power” standing out as the two most common by far. “Environment” was common for both parties as well, but much more so for Democrats than Republicans. The other words were “resources,” “nature,” “pollution,” “noise,” and “jobs.”

Is local support for sale?

Next, we quantified the cost of local opposition. We asked participants who said they did not support a local data center to register their required price - in the form of a one-time payment - to gain their support. The item was formatted as an open-response item, meaning that participants could write in any number that they wanted, as long as it was a real number. This is where the depth of opposition really came through: 22% of participants reported a price-tag above $1 million, 174 people registered a price above $1 billion, and 7% respondents reported that nothing could buy their support. Some answers were so high that they rendered the average meaningless, so we report medians instead.

Support might be buyable - but some won’t budge at any price point.

Scatterplot graph of responses to the following survey question: “Imagine a tech company is interested in building a data center in your community. They are willing to negotiate terms with the local residents. They are in talks with your local government to agree on a deal that would give all local residents a one-time tax rebate. Under what conditions - in terms of a tax rebate - would you be willing to say that you support the construction of this data center in your community?” The x axis measures dollar amounts, with markers for “$10k,” “$50k,” “$100k,” “$250k,” “500k,” and “$1M.” A key to right of the graph is labeled “Number of respondents” and show four circles of increasing size that represent “50,” “100,” “150,” and “200” respectively. The graph shows that most responses fell between “$10k” and “$100k,” with the notable exception of about 200 respondents at “$1M.”

Public support is costly.

The median price required to buy opposers’ support was $10,000 in individual, one-time payouts. Scaled up to a median-sized county, buying support would cost a total of $240 million. And because the cost grows with every additional resident, the bill climbs steeply for data centers sited in larger counties.

A bar graph measuring the responses to the following survey question: “Imagine a tech company is interested in building a data center in your community. They are willing to negotiate terms with the local residents. They are in talks with your local government to agree on a deal that would give all local residents a one-time tax rebate. Under what conditions - in terms of a tax rebate - would you be willing to say that you support the construction of this data center in your community?” The x axis measures “Percent of non-supporters.” The Y axis includes five dollar amount ranges: “$1K or less,” “$10K or less,” “50K or less,” “100K or less,” and “1M or less.” As the dollar amount requested increases, the percent of non-supporters who requested that dollar amount increases.

While the median acceptable payment for a non-supporter to change their mind was $10,000, that increases as income increases: the median among those that make between $75K and $150K is $25,000; the median for the upper-class is $50,000. Which means that a data center seeking support in a more populated and wealthier county - such as in Southern California or Northern Virginia - would have to pay a much heftier payout.

The wealthier the opposition, the more their support costs.

Bubble chart of responses to the following survey question: “Imagine a tech company is interested in building a data center in your community. They are willing to negotiate terms with the local residents. They are in talks with your local government to agree on a deal that would give all local residents a one-time tax rebate. Under what conditions - in terms of a tax rebate - would you be willing to say that you support the construction of this data center in your community?” The x axis measures “annual household income,” with markers for “<$75k,” “$75k - $150k,” and “>$150k.” The y-axis measures “Acceptable payment to buy support for a local data center,” with and measures a scale from $0 to $500,000. A key to right of the graph is labeled “Number of respondents” and shows the small circle and large circle that represent 50 respondents and 100 respondents respectively. The graph shows that the median acceptable payment for those with a household income under $75,000 was $10,000. For those with a household income between $75,000 and $150,000 it was $25,000, and it for a household income of over $150,000 it was $50,000.

Public support for the data center buildout can’t be taken for granted. It is scarce, and it is expensive. Two in three Americans oppose a data center in their community, and that opposition cuts across party lines and generations. It is also multidimensional: people weigh many concerns at once, from water and power to quality of life, so no single concession is likely to win them over. In some places, support may be for sale, but at a steep price that rises with population and income, and a meaningful share of opponents say no amount would be enough. For tech companies and policymakers, public sentiment belongs on the list alongside energy, land, water, and network infrastructure: it is a resource that has to be secured before ground is broken.

Source: NSI survey fielded June 7–8, 2026.

Americans want investments in their local community when a data center comes to town.

And they really like when it goes direclty to their pockets.

Public opposition to data centers has already stopped billions of dollars worth of projects, and stalled many more. Data center developers are starting to realize that they can move faster with communities on their side, and they are increasingly making bids for public support. Meta launched an ad campaign in a bid to paint data centers in a community-oriented, locally-grown light. Amazon wants the public to know that they will build data centers “responsibly” and in a way that benefits the locals. And a developer in Pennsylvania went so far as to directly offer locals $10,000 one time payouts if they allowed a data center to be built in their area. Tech companies and developers are interested in investing money in a bid to earn the public’s support, but where do the people want that money to go?

To find out, we ran a 4-condition randomized survey experiment with a pre- post- design to test what type of investments the American public would prefer. Launched in June 2026, we collected a sample of 1,991 American participants.

We based the size of the investment on our first study: a median price of $10,000 per household, or about $240 million for a median-sized county.

First, at the beginning of an unrelated survey study, we asked: “Overall, would you favor or oppose the construction of more data centers in your local community to support artificial intelligence, or AI, technology in the U.S.?” and allowed participants to respond on a 5-point Likert scale from strongly oppose to strongly support. Next, after completing their participation in the other unrelated survey, we brought them back and introduced a hypothetical data center’s proposition: “A technology company has proposed building a data center for AI applications in your local community.” Then, each participant saw one of these four scenarios:

Control condition: The technology company would operate under a sales tax exemption, as is the standard for most previous data center projects.

Taxes condition: Under a negotiated agreement, the company would provide a $240 million investment in your local community, distributed as a $10,000 payment to each household.

Pro-environmental efforts condition: Under a negotiated agreement, the company would provide a $240 million investment in your local community, distributed to environmental initiatives.

Social capital condition: Under a negotiated agreement, the company would provide a $240 million investment in your local community, distributed as a schools, libraries, and community centers.

Then, we asked: “Considering the negotiated terms, would you favor or oppose the construction of this data center in your local community?” Because we measured each person’s view before and after, we could see how much each type of pledge changed minds.

Investment pledges always boost support. The strongest boost comes when money goes straight to local residents’ pockets.

We tested three ways companies might invest $240 million in communities to win support for local data center development. While every type of investment nudged support upward, direct cash payments were the only type of investment that yielded more supporters than opposers.

Only Cash Moves the Town

There is an important caveat though. No investment was enough to yield average support, because at least 1 in 10 people still sit on the fence. So direct cash payments can yield more supporters than opposers, but doesn’t completely flip the town.

After learning that a prospective data center pledges to invest $240 million in the local community, the percentage of people in opposition fell by 10 to almost 20 points, and support nearly doubled.

Investment pledges lower opposition and nearly double support.

Our findings revealed some interesting nuances about how people think about investment pledges. For example, proximity to a current data center generally increases tolerance for a new data center build. But, that same proximity blunts the positive effect of the $240M pledge in local public goods. That is: an investment pledge in local public goods brings support up to the same level as those that already have a data center near them. But that same investment moves the needs half as much amongst those that already have a data center near them. This was not, however, the case for the other investment pledges.

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study 4 findings will go here