许多美国人担心AI数据中心，并计划据此投票，但在下周中期选举之前，这些为AI提供动力的庞大机房并不是他们最关心的问题。盖洛普周四公布的民调基于本月早些时候进行的访谈，结果显示，约30%的受访者将“AI数据中心的建设”列为中期选举考量中“极其重要”的因素，另有23%的受访者认为该问题“非常重要”。按党派划分时，共和党人是对数据中心更为冷淡的群体。
Many Americans are worried about AI data centers — and they plan to vote accordingly — but the colossal AI-powering warehouses aren't their main concern ahead of next week's midterm elections. In a Gallup poll released on Thursday based on interviews conducted earlier this month, about 30% of respondents ranked "construction of AI data centers" as an "extremely important" factor in their midterm calculus. Another 23% ranked the issue as "very important." When separated by political party, Republicans emerged as the group more apathetic to data centers.
只有16%的共和党登记选民表示他们认为该问题极其重要，而民主党登记选民中这一比例为42%。在这项民调中，盖洛普调查人员并未询问选民对数据中心等问题的看法，只询问他们在下周投票时会在多大程度上考虑每个问题。总体而言，经济状况、医疗保健和“伊朗局势”成为选民最关心的话题。为聊天机器人查询提供动力的庞大服务器工厂在过去一年遭遇了灾难性的公关危机，并已成为全美各地市政厅会议和华盛顿大型集会抗议的主题。
Only 16% of registered Republicans said they considered the issue extremely important, compared to 42% of registered Democrats. In the poll, Gallup surveyors did not ask voters for their opinions on issues like data centers — only the extent to which they were considering each issue when they vote next week. Overall, the state of the economy, healthcare, and the "situation in Iran" emerged as the most important topics for voters. The massive server factories powering chatbot queries had a disastrous PR run over the last year, and have been the subject of protests across America at local town hall meetings and major rallies in Washington.
一些州已通过数据中心建设暂停令，禁止其建设。得克萨斯州州长格雷格·阿博特曾是AI数据中心扩张的拥护者，他在8月表示，该州已叫停多达1800个数据中心项目。总统唐纳德·特朗普一直倡导全国性的AI基础设施建设，他在8月表示，数据中心“可能需要一点公关帮助”。他鼓励包括Meta、微软和亚马逊在内的大型建设者为数据中心计划落户的社区做更多事情。
Some states have passed data center moratoriums, prohibiting their construction. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, once a champion of AI data center expansion, said in August that the state had halted as many as 1,800 data center proposals. President Donald Trump, who has championed a national effort to build out AI infrastructure, said in August that data centers "could use a little public relations help." He encouraged major builders, including Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, to do more for the communities where they are planned.
然而，随着中期选举临近，选民对AI数据中心的担忧已被更紧迫的问题所取代，如伊朗战争、能源价格上涨和经济的整体健康状况。
As the midterms approach, however, concern over AI data centers has given way to more pressing issues for voters, like the Iran war, rising energy prices, and the overall health of the economy.
数据中心议题在盖洛普民调的主题中排名第10位，仅领先于排名第11位的气候变化。高达87%的选民认为经济是重要议题，紧随其后的是医疗保健，为77%。皮尤研究中心9月发布的一项民调（8月进行调查）显示，一半的美国农村居民认为数据中心“主要对环境有害” —— 这一比例远高于1月的32%。对于OpenAI、Anthropic、Meta、谷歌等AI公司而言，这一问题关乎生存。
The data center issue ranked 10th among the topics polled by Gallup, just ahead of climate change at 11. A whopping 87% of voters consider the economy an important issue, followed closely by healthcare at 77%. In a September poll by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed people in August, half of rural Americans said data centers "are mostly bad for the environment" — a figure substantially higher than in January, when it sat at 32%. For AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, and others, the issue is existential.
没有AI数据中心，它们就无法为所售产品提供算力支持。萨姆·奥特曼近期建议，新数据中心可建在远离居民区的地方，如沙漠。“我们只需把它建在沙漠里，周围没有人，没人想去的地方，”奥特曼7月表示，“这没问题。AI系统在那里会非常开心。”
Without AI data centers, they can't power the products they sell. Sam Altman has recently suggested that new data centers could be built far from where people live, like the desert. "We should just go put it off in the desert, around no one where no one wants to be," Altman said in July. "This is fine. The AI system is very happy to be there."