{"id":300363,"date":"2026-05-19T22:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T22:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/300363\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T22:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T22:19:15","slug":"majority-of-houstonians-use-ai-but-oppose-data-centers-near-their-homes-hobby-school-survey-finds-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/300363\/","title":{"rendered":"Majority of Houstonians use AI but oppose data centers near their homes, Hobby School survey finds \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260326-taccdatacenter-19.webp\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-551333\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260326-taccdatacenter-19.webp\" alt=\"The Texas Advanced Computing Center, an academic-focused data center that is home to multiple supercomputer clusters, is pictured on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Austin, Texas.\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2000\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Michael Minasi | KUT News<\/p>\n<p>A new report from UT Austin estimates data centers could account for up to 9% of Texas water use by 2040.<\/p>\n<p>While the majority of Houstonians use artificial intelligence tools at least once a month, most residents also say they would oppose a data center built within a mile of their homes.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uh.edu\/news-events\/stories\/2026\/may\/05182026-space-city-panel-data-centers.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a recent survey<\/a> conducted by the University of Houston&#8217;s Hobby School of Public Affairs.<\/p>\n<p>About 65% of Houstonians surveyed report moderate to high AI usage. Women and adults ages 30-69 had the highest usage rates, the survey found. <\/p>\n<p>Sign up for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstonpublicmedia.org\/hellohouston\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, nearly 63% of respondents said they would oppose a data center being built near their homes.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant Professor Maria Perez Arguelles is the survey&#8217;s lead researcher.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I interpret this as people just being unclear about what&#8217;s going to happen, but they know there&#8217;s going to be an impact [on the] environment and that somebody should bear the cost,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Residents listed energy demand as their top concern about data centers, followed by environmental impact and water usage.<\/p>\n<p>Perez Arguelles said residents are not opposed to AI itself, but want companies to take accountability for the potential impacts of data centers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re more worried about this change with [regards to] responsibility, accountability, but they don&#8217;t oppose the change,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They want AI in their lives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The survey comes as Texas is on track to have the nation\u2019s largest data center market by 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Minasi | KUT News A new report from UT Austin estimates data centers could account for up&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4267,109092,5304,6782,2327,20094,56,58,57,66,3621],"class_list":["post-300363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence-tools","tag-data-centers","tag-energy-environment","tag-environment","tag-hobby-school-of-public-affairs","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}