70% of Americans Oppose Data Centers Near Homes; Less Popular Than Nuclear Plants

A new survey finds 70% of Americans oppose locating data centers near residential areas, making AI/compute infrastructure less popular than nuclear power plants. The backlash reflects concerns over heat, noise, water consumption, and grid strain as tech companies accelerate capex to acquire compute capacity for large-language models.

For enterprise infrastructure teams, this signals growing community resistance that could delay hyperscaler buildouts in suburban and rural markets, pushing demand toward existing colocation hubs and raising power/connectivity costs in competitive zones.