Jury out on whether Americans approve or disapprove of datacenters
- Reference: 1773578054
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/03/15/jury_out_on_whether_americans/
- Source link:
A survey by the [1]Pew Research Center finds that a quarter of adults have "heard or read a lot" about datacenters, while half have only heard a little about them.
The flip side is that a quarter of respondents claim to have heard nothing about them at all - presumably they don't wonder how their cloud services are served up.
[2]
The survey was conducted earlier this year and involved 8,512 adult Americans.
[3]
[4]
Overall, it finds that people in the US mostly believe the IT industry's server warehouses have a negative effect on the environment, energy costs and local communities, but that they are generally good for local jobs and local tax revenue.
Pew says 39 percent of respondents think datacenters are bad for the environment, compared with just 4 percent who believe they are actually beneficial.
[5]
When it comes to energy costs for consumers, 38 percent indicated they thought the AI hothouses had a negative effect. We are surprised this figure isn't greater, considering [6]recent reports that show demand from datacenters is contributing to higher energy bills, [7]questions are being asked by US senators , and President Trump is creating a [8]Ratepayer Protection Pledge to try and address the issue.
At the same time, more adults seem to believe that datacenters mostly have a positive impact on local jobs (25 percent of respondents) than feel their influence is negative, while 23 percent of Americans think they are good for local tax revenue compared with the 12 percent that say they are bad.
Ironically, the reverse appears to be the reality here. Good Jobs First, a non-profit body focused on corporate and government accountability, found that [9]datacenter developers are benefiting massively from local subsidies in the majority of US states, and those states that do calculate their returns find they are losing money on the deals.
[10]
And while hyperscalers like to claim their facilities bring jobs to a region, almost all of the work pertains to building the site. Once operational, many server halls employ around 30 to 50 permanent positions, while larger facilities can employ up to 200 people.
When it comes to the vexed issue of political divides, Pew finds that respondents who were Democrat-leaning view the impact of datacenters more negatively than Republicans.
However, few Democrats or Republicans actually believe that server halls are mostly good for the environment, home energy costs and people's quality of life.
[11]AI is rewriting how power flows through the datacenter
[12]All aglow about DCs, investors launch $300M at microreactor startup
[13]Why do bit barns keep bumping up our bills, Senators ask DC operators
[14]From Georgia to Essex, AI datacenters are testing public goodwill
Younger adults also have more negative views than older adults, with 54 percent of those under 30 agreeing that datacenters have a mostly detrimental effect on the environment, falling to just 26 percent for respondents aged 65 and over.
Attitudes also depend on the respondents' knowledge of server farms. Those who say they have heard a lot about them are more likely to be male, in upper-income households and college graduates.
Those who have heard a lot about server halls are more likely to agree that they have a negative impact in all five areas the Pew researchers asked about.
The datacenter industry is well aware it [15]has an image problem , as was discussed at last year's Datacloud Global Congress in Cannes, France. Perhaps industry can take comfort from the fact that for those who know little about it, ignorance is bliss. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/12/how-americans-view-data-centers-impact-in-key-areas-from-the-environment-to-jobs/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2abblr7FIoWExEnS4KYP06gAAARY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44abblr7FIoWExEnS4KYP06gAAARY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33abblr7FIoWExEnS4KYP06gAAARY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44abblr7FIoWExEnS4KYP06gAAARY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-center-power-demands-are-contributing-to-higher-energy-bills
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/16/datacenters_energy_bills_dc/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/05/munificent_7_pledge_on_energy/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/11/us_taxpayers_dc_subsidies/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33abblr7FIoWExEnS4KYP06gAAARY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/22/ai_power_datacenter/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/smr_investment/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/16/datacenters_energy_bills_dc/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/16/datacenter_development_controversy/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/05/datacenters_have_a_public_image/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Paint them!
You must paint them Green . Then you can tell everyone that you work at a Green facility!
/s
Re: Paint them!
I see you got the point! Now go and paint!
Jury is out because the details aren't in
As complex and wonky of a subject as datacenters are, it's no surprise that so many remain undecided because the bottom line isn't clear.
Will retail power rates spike or can new generation blunt any rise? Will datacenters be suburban eyesores or can we find sufficiently rural land? Will AI leave us unemployed or will gains be good for humanity? Etc.
It's practically impossible to get any sort of reasoned clarity in the choice which the public must decide on when the dementia-riddled president governs chaotically, by social media, and the last person he listened to.
"When it comes to energy costs for consumers, 38 percent indicated they thought the AI hothouses had a negative effect. We are surprised this figure isn't greater,"
Given that only 25% had read or heard much about DCs and as many nothing at all this isn't in the least surprising.
'Overall, it finds that people in the US mostly believe the IT industry's server warehouses have a negative effect on the environment, energy costs and local communities, but that they are generally good for local jobs and local tax revenue.'
I can not comment on local tax revenue, but local jobs beyond construction will be paltry - and then there is the rest.
The "paltry jobs" thing is a myth. When customers demand five or six nines of uptime, there are plenty of good-paying long-term jobs for both IT professionals and blue collar employees. Datacenters also make better growth than vape shops, bars, casinos, strip clubs, etc., or a factory which dumps crap in the river, just so long as the datacenters are buffered. You don't want to live next to one, but they also don't bring social ills to the wider community.
"Datacenter Alley" a/k/a Loudoun County, Virginia has the highest median income of any county in the US. Next door to Fairfax, which also has a lot of data centers, is #2.
Sure, much of that is from the impact of federal employment, but datacenters are pumping billions into the local economy and providing an anchor for a local tech scene. Locating close to that capacity has real advantages, which is why it built up there in the first place. Yeah, a lot of cash-flush tech companies want to be next to the heart of AWS.
Meanwhile, the US has a lot of states with dying, 20th century economies, and those places can potentially reanchor themselves for the future by giving high-earning professionals a reason to move there. Plenty of land in rural America, if only rural Republicans weren't so against solar energy.
In some of these dying Southern and Midwestern towns, they'll reject the datacenter because nobody local will work there (darn those immigrants!!!), and power prices will go up, unless of course the datacenter brings its own energy, and if that's solar, well then Fox News says everyone in town will be turned into a transgender communist. What they're not seeing is how much a local tech scene pumps into the local economy. Not sure if it's immediately obvious to European observers (might be; people are the same all over), but there's a thing in the US where highly-educated, highly-skilled, nerdy types move to out-of-the-way places because they're out of the way, and there's some anchor there, like a university and research community. There's a contrarian, hipster vibe to it.
With living costs so low, these employees have huge disposable incomes which get pumped back into the local economy.
A datacenter can bring a couple hundred tech jobs to an area, so long as it has power lines and fiber lines, and about the same amount of blue-collar jobs which tend to pay way higher than local scale. Datacenters don't hire the cheap electricians, even if the local diner does. All those salaries can be a huge external cash infusion to a small community. Then add in the property taxes paid by a tech giant; suddenly, the fire department has what it needs without hiking taxes on retirees or the working class.
"a quarter of respondents claim to have heard nothing about them at all"
This is the US after all. For any value of "them" above you would have the same 25% who also might have difficulty accurately applying bog paper.
Visualize a not·so·wise monkey with three pairs of hands.
Re: "a quarter of respondents claim to have heard nothing about them at all"
Like Reform voters you mean.
This is the UK after all.
Paint them!
The upper part of the datacenter in blue with while clouds, the lower part variations of a forest. And paint mock-solar panels on the roof.
That will convince more people than it should.