Pew: 54% of Americans now say data centres are mostly bad for the environment

Pew surveyed 10,548 American adults on its American Trends Panel between 20 July and 9 August, and published on 22 September. The share saying data centres are mostly bad for the environment reached 54%, against 39% in Pew's own January 2026 survey. Sixty per cent say they would be “not too or not at all comfortable with a new data center operating in their area” — note the wording, which is about one operating nearby, not about construction in the abstract.

Fifteen points in seven months is fast for a public-opinion measure, and it moved without a single galvanising national event. What happened in between was local: siting fights, water and power draw disclosures, and utility rate cases in which data-centre load became the line item residential customers could point at.

The number to watch is not the 54% but the 60%. Environmental opinion is diffuse; local discomfort is a planning commission. Every gigawatt of announced AI capacity has to land in somebody's county, and the entities underwriting that buildout — developers, their utility counterparties, and the hyperscalers signing the offtake — are now working against a population where three in five object to the thing arriving near them.

For anyone modelling AI infrastructure returns, this belongs in the schedule assumption rather than the sentiment column. Permitting delay is the mechanism by which public opinion becomes a cost.

• Confirmed 54% now say data centres are mostly bad for the environment, against 39% in January 2026 — a fifteen-point swing in about seven months. Pew Research Center
• Confirmed 60% say they would be “not too or not at all comfortable with a new data center operating in their area”. Pew Research Center
• Confirmed Sample of 10,548 US adults on the American Trends Panel, fielded 20 July to 9 August 2026. Pew Research Center