A large majority of Canadians in a recent poll said they worry that artificial intelligence data centres will hike their power bills and harm the environment.
In the Leger poll, 81 percent of respondents said they are concerned about the prospect of data centres leading to spikes in their household electricity bills.
A similar share, 79 percent, said they worry about the environmental impacts, such as the large amounts of electricity and water data centres consume, as well as their greenhouse gas emissions.
When the survey touched on the issue of data sovereignty and asked respondents whether they support building data centres to back Canadian-based AI services, more were in favour than were opposed….