The breakout issue of 2026 has undoubtedly been data centres, more precisely opposition to data centres. People despise them. In the US midterms, only a single ballot measure (out of 44) on data centres resulted in a favourable outcome for the developers. In exit polls conducted by CBS News, 76% of respondents oppose construction of data centres in their community – and it’s not just Democrats (87% oppose): opposition among Republicans (62% oppose) and independents (78% oppose) is high too. Simultaneously, views on AI are bleak, with 57% of respondents saying it will do more to hurt humanity than to help; only 24% say it will help more. In Europe, 92 protests against data centres are being organised in November alone. Those in tech have been caught off guard, and many don’t seem to understand this strong opposition. I think it’s obvious.
I’m sure there’s always been opposition to heavy industry. No one wants to live next to a chemical plant. However, this feels different. We’ve been building data centres without major issues for nearly a century. What’s different this time?
Perhaps it’s scale. Cleanview, a market intelligence company, puts the total number of data centres operating or being constructed in the US at 1,835. Ten years ago the figure was a fifth of that (352). In 2026 alone, the number has increased by ~60%, from 1,134 the year before. The data centres being built are also bigger than ever, both when measured in square metres and power consumption.
However, more than anything, I think people hate AI and its proponents. It doesn’t help that the companies and people who are central to the development of AI spent the 2010s cultivating a bad reputation as “big tech”. Neither do their public statements of impending doom due to runaway RSI (Recursive Self-Improvement) or massive white-collar job displacement causing a permanent underclass. These proponents will counter that AI will usher in an era of unprecedented civilisational progress. It will solve our biggest problems: disease, climate change, and poverty, with only a slight risk of total extinction.
In his book Life 3.0, Max Tegmark explores potential scenarios if we achieve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). One of these, Egalitarian Utopia, describes a world in which machines have made work redundant, private property has been abolished, and everything is free because the cost of production has collapsed. Humans spend their time on leisure, art, or whatever else they fancy, all their needs taken care of. By contrast, the 2013 film Elysium describes a world in which the rich and powerful live a life in orbit similar to Tegmark’s scenario, but on Earth the majority eke out a meagre, gruesome existence.
Tegmark’s scenario certainly sounds appealing, and if your p(doom) is 0%, then full speed ahead at nearly any cost seems a sound conclusion. Of course, most people don’t put p(doom) at 0% – Tegmark, for example, puts it at 90%. Regardless, with wealth inequality on the rise and the richest few controlling more resources (including the frontier AI labs) than ever, most people probably view the Elysium outcome, or something like it, as far more probable.
Even among tech enthusiasts, some of whom are making significant use of AI, there’s a great deal of animosity towards the frontier labs and their executives. Sam Altman’s recent comment about it being “quite terrible” for some of the world’s limited supply of RAM to be in the hands of private individuals was not appreciated in those circles. If I were in charge of marketing at OpenAI, I would push for a ban on Altman making public statements. The data centre build-out has pushed the price and availability of RAM and GPUs out of reach for enthusiasts. In recent months, many old games have been resurrected on modern hardware thanks to Opus 5.5’s reverse-engineering capabilities; however, Anthropic, to the dismay of the community, has since restricted this. Many, I suspect, find it a little rich for the AI labs to lecture people on intellectual property rights, when they themselves trained their models on data with dubious provenance.
Of people’s concerns about data centres, power consumption is perhaps most salient. This is partly a worry about grid stability and energy prices, but also, due to the actions of developers, about climate change. Some data centres are side-stepping the question of grid connectivity by running gas turbines on-site, exacerbating not just climate change but local air pollution. If AI solves climate change, this is but a speed bump; however, this is likely not a view held by most people. Pew found in August 2026 that 54% of Americans believe AI will be mostly bad for the environment; this number is up from 39% in January of the same year.
At least everyone’s stock portfolios are up? Well, consider that only 62% of US households own any stocks in the first place, and then that most of the stock market is owned by the top 10%. In fact, many might see no upside in AI-driven stock market growth, but if the bubble were to pop, the resulting reverberations are a clear downside.
When these data centres are proposed, the democratic process is often subverted, or at least undermined. Local politicians bound by non-disclosure agreements face the community’s ire over shadowy developers and obscured end-clients. It’s a bad look with parallels to another high-salience issue of 2026: Flock cameras. This further fuels antagonism against data centres and AI.
Thus, for the median Western person, a data centre in their local community is a glaring, loud, visual reminder of AI. AI, which in the best case will free us from disease, labour, and suffering, but is more likely to further wealth inequality and rob them of their livelihood. AI, which according to its makers has a non-zero chance of killing us all. AI, which might increase their energy prices, hasten climate change, and pollute their air and water, while reducing their property value.
Neither the positive outcomes nor, obviously, the negative ones are seen as benefiting people. This at the cost of the climate, the democratic process, and a potential recession. Of course people hate data centres.