Only a small percentage of U.S. voters who oppose data centers live near one, a new poll by a consulting firm that counsels leading AI labs and tech startups found.

The poll, conducted by Milltown Partners, which surveyed more than 6,500 registered U.S. voters nationwide, suggested that Americans are not opposed to data center building projects as much as to what they represent. As first reported by Axios, the backlash comes from a broader anxiety about an AI future that many Americans do not want but will have to pay for.

The poll also oversampled voters in states that currently have data center projects, including California, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas.

Most people who opposed data centers did not live near one, with only 8% of respondents who opposed them saying that they know of one or more data centers in their area. This suggests that most voters are not strictly opposed to data centers but may be concerned with the pace and the terms of construction, according to Axios.

According to the findings, 38% of respondents said that they would support a data center close to their home, while 34% would oppose it.

Meanwhile, 49% of respondents said that they would support a moratorium, a temporary ban on construction of new data centers, while only 16% said they would oppose it. Twenty-seven percent said they neither supported nor opposed a moratorium, while 8% responded that they did not know.

A temporary moratorium could get companies and policymakers to respond to questions around costs, benefits and water consumption of data centers.

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

Earlier in April, a Pew Research Center poll found that proximity to an existing or planned data center did not affect what Americans thought about data centers. Two-thirds of planned data centers were in rural areas, while 87% of existing data centers were urban, according to the poll. 

AI criticism has been prevalent on both the right and left. Both Steve Bannon, on the right, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on the left, have said that AI is a threat to the working class. Tech leaders of the most powerful AI companies have also echoed warnings about AI replacing jobs and fueling mass unemployment.

“We will get real populist backlash to AI when the unemployment moves by, say, 2 percentage points and people see it as caused by AI,” wrote Andy Hall, a professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, last month on X. 

Meanwhile, tech companies are looking for ways to staff the data centers they are building. Meta has invested $115 million in a no-cost training program for workers in skilled trades in states that have data center projects, with program participants paired with one of Meta’s general contractors on a construction site at the end of the program.

Genersis AI has also launched a general-purpose robot, Eno, designed to reason through complex environments like data centers.

The poll by Milltown Partners, a public affairs and communications firm, surveyed 6,872 registered voters between May 10 and May 20, recruiting from online panels. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.