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Americans' frustration with artificial intelligence is hardening into organized political opposition, driven in large part by anger over electricity costs tied to the rapid expansion of data centers across the country.
Gallup polling released last week found that roughly 70% of Americans would object to an AI data center being constructed in their community, citing worries about strain on local power resources and the prospect of higher monthly utility bills as their leading concerns. A YouGov and Economist survey conducted around the same period showed that a majority of Americans feel the pace of AI development is outrunning society's ability to manage it and that the technology will not produce broad economic benefits for ordinary people.
The backlash is already reshaping local politics. Community opposition stalled or halted 48 projects representing more than $156 billion in planned construction last year alone, according to Data Center Watch data cited by Fortune.
Underlying that resistance is a concrete financial concern. New findings in Environmental Research Letters tracked a more than doubling of data centers' slice of national power demand, from 1.9% to 4.4%, over the five-year span ending in 2023. Depending on the trajectory of data center growth, that same research estimates wholesale electricity prices nationwide could be anywhere from 6% to 29% higher by the end of the decade. In Virginia, a hub of data center construction, generation costs could spike as much as 57%.
