Data centers become the face of AI backlash

Only a small fraction of data center opponents actually live near one, according to new polling by a consulting firm that counsels leading AI labs and tech startups.

Why it matters: The findings by Milltown Partners, shared first with Axios, highlight how data centers have become a stand-in for broader anger at an AI future many Americans don't want but fear they'll have to pay for.

By the numbers: The public is still divided on data centers, with direct opposition not yet a majority view. But nearly half of respondents support a temporary construction ban, according to Milltown's findings.

• 38% of respondents said they would support a data center being built near their home, while 34% would oppose it.
• Meanwhile, 49% say they support a moratorium on construction of new data centers, while only 16% oppose a moratorium.
• Another 27% neither support nor oppose a moratorium and 8% say they don't know.
• Most opposition to data centers isn't coming from neighbors. Only 8% of the respondents who oppose data centers say they know of one or more data centers near their home, the poll found.

Between the lines: The split suggests many voters aren't categorically anti-data center, but they are wary of the pace and terms of the buildout.

• A temporary moratorium could be a way to force companies and policymakers to answer questions about costs, water use and who benefits.

Threat level: Both Steve Bannon on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left have attacked AI as a threat to working people.

• "This isn't happening in a vacuum. The AI transformation is arriving at a time when Americans already feel angry, insecure and pessimistic," Milltown Partners researcher Tom Brookes says.

Context: Pew Research Center also found in an April poll that living near an existing or planned data center doesn't have much effect on Americans' views of the facilities.

• Two-thirds of planned data centers are in rural areas, even though 87% of existing data centers are in urban ones, Pew found.

What they're saying: Warnings from tech leaders that AI will bring mass job loss are handing critics more ammunition.

• If unemployment moves by two percentage points and people think this is caused by AI, we will see a "real populist backlash," Andy Hall, professor at Stanford's graduate school of business and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote on X last month.

The intrigue: The backlash is hitting just as tech companies look for new ways to staff their data centers, at least temporarily.

• "People are building massive scale data centers everywhere and they're facing a severe labor shortage. That's the gap we want to fill," Zhou Xian, co-founder and CEO of Genesis AI, tells Axios.
• But not always with humans. Genesis AI just launched a new general-purpose robot built to move in complex environments, like data centers.

The fine print: Milltown Partners, a global public affairs and communications firm, surveyed 6,872 registered voters between May 10 and May 20 recruited from online panels. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.

• The polling oversampled voters in Texas, Georgia, Michigan, California, and North Carolina — states with current data center projects.

The bottom line: The massive windowless warehouses packed with computing infrastructure have become a physical symbol of wider AI anxiety.