American Sentiment Finds 90.5% of Data Center Comments Negative

By Amara Osei

American Sentiment classified 90.5% of 10,202 data center comments as negative in 2026, according to TechRadar’s coverage of the database run by San Francisco AI startup Prophecy Gov.

The records covered 906 meetings, 417 councils, boards and commissions in 48 states. TechRadar’s “America hates data centers” was headline wording, not an on-record statement; the dataset does not measure Americans as a whole.

What does American Sentiment measure?

Prophecy Gov collected local meeting comments and classified each by tone, without soliciting, weighting or balancing speakers against a population sample. Boards use such records for rezoning, tax abatements and utility agreements.

• 90.5% negative, 7% support for a potential nearby center and 2.5% questions—the complete split.
• 73% of meetings had no supporter; this measures meetings, not comments.
• 21% mentioned AI, while water ranked as the leading concern without a published percentage.
• The database averaged 11.3 comments per meeting.

The database measures comments from those who spoke, not a national electorate.

Why is this not a national poll?

People near a proposed site have a direct stake in noise, traffic, property values and power lines. Future employees, suppliers and residents seeking lower tax bills have diffuse benefits and less reason to attend.

Self-selection likely inflates opposition, but officials respond to the room. The data shows what decision-makers hear, not how a representative national poll would read.

For developers, the record matters even when it fails as a statistical sample.

What does the support gap mean for cloud deployment?

The reported shares imply about 9,233 negative comments, 714 supportive comments, 255 questions and 2,142 AI mentions. They also imply 661 meetings without a supporter and 245 with at least one; Prophecy Gov published none of these rounded totals.

Supporters stayed outnumbered overall; the gap reflects meeting attendance, not necessarily community absence.

The imbalance raises cloud schedule risk: pending campuses can delay regions, extend constraints and shift pricing toward approved-site providers. An earlier report tracked a $329.17 per MW-day electricity auction.

• Regions: Status pages and maps show live or pending sites and nearby failover options.
• Resources: Sustainability reports and permits should state water and power plans.
• Contracts: Contract and service-level terms show reliance on unbuilt sites.
• Policy: County and state calendars list curbs and ballot