Poll shows Americans are increasingly alarmed by AI’s ecological footprint

Over half of Americans fear AI-driven data centers will hike electricity costs and strain water supplies in local areas, according to new poll.

Demonstrators hold a sign calling for regulation of artificial intelligence during a protest outside the G20 Innovation Ministerial summit, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, September 2, 2026 [Jonathan Drake/Reuters]

A new survey of adults in the United States finds that more than half worry about artificial intelligence ’s environmental impact, up 12 percentage points from last year.

The poll, a joint effort by The Associated Press, the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, indicated that Americans dread AI’s carbon footprint far more than high-emission giants like meat production and aviation.

Released on Wednesday, data from interviews with 3,424 US adults in August show that 53 per cent of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about artificial intelligence’s environmental impacts. The increased wariness marks an upward trend from the 41 percent recorded last year.

While Democrats are fuelling much of the rise in eco-awareness, with two-thirds expressing great concern compared to half of independents and 4 in 10 Republicans, greater public anxiety is emerging over how local data centres powering AI and cloud computing could affect nearby communities. According to the survey, most Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of data centres on electricity prices or the water supply in the communities where they are built.

“We’re undertaking a massive experiment in real time, and I don’t think there’ll be any putting the milk back in the bottle,” said Michael Greenstone, who directs the University of Chicago institute that collaborated on the survey. “Change is scary, and I think some of that is being reflected here.”

Despite bipartisan pushback , thousands of data centres already span the US, with extensive construction underway to meet escalating demand. The scope includes decades-old conventional facilities alongside massive and newly built hyperscale centres engineered for resource-intensive AI processing. While Virginia and Texas lead the nation in operating facilities, California, Ohio and New York follow behind closely as top digital infrastructure hubs.

United States President Donald Trump has urged communities across the country to embrace the tech facilities, promising that they will bring jobs.

“There’s a lot of water usage by AI data centres that’s taking away from other things like agriculture and farmers and places that really need it, and people who really need it,” Gedeon Kebede, a computer science student and Democrat from Cincinnati, Ohio, told the AP.

While data centres aren’t the US’s largest water gobblers, they still retain water to cool AI chips and computers and can be “nationally modest but potentially locally decisive”, according to Fengqi You, an energy systems professor with Cornell University.

“I think that decisions are being made for the company, not for the community that they’re being built in,” Nancy Antunes, a 60-year-old retired Democrat from Waltham, Massachusetts, told the AP.

最新民意调查显示，超过半数的美国人担心人工智能驱动的数据中心会推高电力成本，并给当地供水带来压力。

2026年9月2日，在北卡罗来纳州教堂山举行的G20创新部长级峰会外，示威者举着标语呼吁对人工智能进行监管。[Jonathan Drake/路透社]

美国一项新的成年人调查发现，超过一半的成年人担心人工智能对环境的影响，比去年增加了 12 个百分点。

这项由美联社、NORC公共事务研究中心和芝加哥大学能源政策研究所联合开展的民意调查显示，美国人对人工智能的碳足迹的担忧远远超过了对肉类生产和航空等高排放巨头的担忧。

周三公布的数据显示，8月份对3424名美国成年人进行的访谈中，53%的美国人对人工智能的环境影响感到“极其”或“非常”担忧。这一担忧程度较去年的41%有所上升。

虽然民主党人在很大程度上推动了环保意识的提升（三分之二的民主党人对此表示高度关注，而独立人士和共和党人中持相同观点者分别占一半和十分之四），但公众对本地数据中心（为人工智能和云计算提供支持）可能对附近社区造成的影响也日益感到担忧。调查显示，大多数美国人“极其”或“非常”担心数据中心会对所在社区的电价或供水造成影响。

“我们正在进行一项大规模的实时实验，我认为已经无法挽回了，”参与这项调查的芝加哥大学研究所所长迈克尔·格林斯通说。“改变令人恐惧，我认为这一点在这里有所体现。”

尽管两党都持反对意见，但美国各地已建成数千个数据中心，并且为了满足不断增长的需求，大规模的数据中心建设正在进行中。这些数据中心既包括使用了几十年的传统设施，也包括专为资源密集型人工智能处理而设计的大型新建超大规模数据中心。弗吉尼亚州和德克萨斯州在数据中心运营数量上领先全美，加利福尼亚州、俄亥俄州和纽约州紧随其后，成为重要的数字基础设施中心。

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普敦促全国各地社区接纳科技设施，并承诺这些设施将带来就业机会。

“人工智能数据中心消耗大量水资源，这挤占了农业、农民以及真正需要水的地方和人们的用水量，”来自俄亥俄州辛辛那提的计算机科学系学生、民主党人吉迪恩·凯贝德告诉美联社。

康奈尔大学能源系统教授尤凤奇表示，虽然数据中心不是美国最大的用水户，但它们仍然需要用水来冷却人工智能芯片和计算机，而且“从全国范围来看可能并不重要，但从局部范围来看却可能至关重要”。

“我认为这些决定是为了公司利益而做出的，而不是为了公司所在的社区利益而做出的，”来自马萨诸塞州沃尔瑟姆的60岁退休民主党人南希·安图内斯告诉美联社。