Data Centers Are Americans’ Least Favored Form of Development, New Research From Public First and ITIF Shows

WASHINGTON-Nearly half of Americans (46 percent) oppose new data center developments in their communities, and barely a quarter (26 percent) support them, according to a new poll released Wednesday by Public First in partnership with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). That gives data centers the least support by a wide margin among 10 types of local development the poll tested.

Opposition to data center development is strong enough that when Americans are asked about nearby land with no other viable uses, 49 percent say they would prefer it to stay undeveloped and unused, and 33 percent would choose to have the land developed with a new data center. Among those planning to vote Democrat in the midterms, 56 percent would prefer it to remain undeveloped; among those planning to vote Republican, 44 percent would rather have no development than a data center.

"We've seen opposition to data centers grow fast since the start of the year, but this is not just because of concerns about water and energy use," said Seb Wride, head of research and insights at Public First. "It is reflecting growing concern about AI in general. Data center developers are therefore not up against ordinary local resistance to a large building, but on the front-lines of an otherwise intangible argument about how fast to move on AI"

Public First partnered with ITIF to conduct an online survey of 2,007 U.S. adults between August 8 and 12, 2026. Results are weighted to be nationally representative of U.S. adults.

Opposition to AI

Asked about support for building data centers with different objectives, a majority of Americans support building data centers if the use case is specified to be online banking or video streaming, but support drops and opposition increases when the data center is specified to be used for training AI models. Notably, support for office space for an AI laboratory also saw less support than data centers for government data and online banking, even though offices were broadly supported in local communities.

This opposition to AI use cases holds true across key groups:

▪ Those intending to vote Democrat at the midterms mostly support data centers for online banking (41 percent support, 27 percent oppose), but mostly oppose them for training AI models (29 percent support, 41 percent oppose).

▪ Republican voters show the same directional pattern, with support dropping from data centers that are for banking (54 percent support, 19 percent opposition) to AI (46 percent support, 24 percent oppose), though they remain supportive.

▪ The youngest Americans also flip depending on the specified function of the data center, from online banking data centers (41 percent support, 25 percent opposition) to AI (31 percent support, 38 percent oppose).

Widening the lens, the new poll adds greater insight on top of a global survey Public First conducted earlier in the year showing substantially less support for data centers in the United States than in other countries.

"America will not succeed in AI if Americans oppose the basic infrastructure needed to build and run it," said ITIF President Daniel Castro. "Data centers are to AI what highways were to the automobile: essential infrastructure that makes a transformative technology useful at scale. A country cannot lead the world in AI while opposing the infrastructure that makes that leadership possible. Blocking data centers may preserve some land in the short term, but over time it would leave America with less investment, fewer opportunities, and less ability to compete in the technologies that will shape the economy and national security."

Public First and ITIF released the new survey data on Wednesday, August 26, in an ITIF webinar open to the public.

Review the survey and watch the webinar at itif.org.