PHILADELPHIA – As protesters rally against data center construction in dozens of states and New York and Texas pause the issuance of permits for large data centers, a new national survey finds that Americans’ opposition to data centers in their communities has risen sharply since spring.

The survey, conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, finds that about 3 in 5 U.S. adults (61%) oppose the construction of new data centers in their area, up 12 percentage points from an APPC survey in February and March.

Americans’ broader views of artificial intelligence, however, have remained stable. The share saying that AI’s impact on the United States over the next 10 years will be somewhat or very negative was 39%, statistically unchanged from spring. Two-thirds (68%) continue to say the government has done “too little” to regulate AI, unchanged from spring.

The movement over the past four months was concentrated in one place: what Americans think about the physical infrastructure of a data center being built near their home.

The survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Institutions of Democracy division was conducted among a nationally representative sample of 1,320 U.S. adult citizens from June 16-July 19. Key findings include:

  • Opposition to local data centers rose 12 points over four months: 3 in 5 Americans (61%) now somewhat or strongly oppose the construction of new data centers in their area, up from 49% in the survey ending in March. Only 14% are supportive, down from 21% in spring.
  • Opposition crosses party lines and is highest among younger adults: Majorities of Democrats (69%), Republicans (54%) and independents (53%) oppose new local data centers. Opposition is highest among young adults under age 30 (70%) and declines to 57% among those age 65 and older, the inverse of what one might expect for a new technology.
  • Views of AI overall, and demand for regulation, have held steady: 39% expect AI’s impact on the United States to be negative over the next decade, compared with 18% who expect it to be positive, unchanged from spring. Over two-thirds (68%) say the government has done “too little” to regulate AI, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents.
  • Medical research remains the one area where Americans expect AI to help: Across 13 areas, only medical research and discoveries draws a net-positive assessment (+41 points) in which the anticipated benefits of AI outweigh the expected negatives. The most negative areas are personal privacy and data security (-63 points), children’s safety online (-50 points) and employment and jobs (-46 points).
  • People who use AI are less negative about it – but not about data centers. Among those who report “never” using AI in the past month, 54% expect AI’s impact on the United States to be negative. That falls to 40% among light users and 29% among those who used AI many times or almost every day. But opposition to local data centers is essentially flat across different usage groups.

“The people who use AI the most are the most optimistic about what it will do for the country, and that has been consistent across our surveys,” said Matt Levendusky, University of Pennsylvania political science professor and the Stephen and Mary Baran Chair in the Institutions of Democracy at APPC. “That optimism, however, has clear limits, and it disappears when we ask about privacy, about jobs and about whether a data center should go up nearby. Even heavy AI users seem to be concerned about these very concrete worries.”