As AI continues its explosive growth, data centers are becoming the primary target of backlash. From rural Louisiana to the suburbs of Arlington, Virginia, Americans are showing up at zoning and permitting boards to challenge their construction. Bernie Sanders has called for a nationwide data center moratorium, while Republicans in Florida propose regulating their energy and natural resource use.

The criticisms so far have centered on claims about the data centers’ water consumption, electricity demand, noise pollution, land use, and overall disruption—issues that tech companies like Meta are working to address with new practices and community investments. Yet something more needs to be done on the political front to ameliorate Americans’ growing concerns about data centers.

AI faces skepticism across our culture for its potential negative impact on employment and fostering greater wealth inequality. However, the explosive growth of data centers creates the opportunity to diffuse these fears. AI-related infrastructure construction is already spurring job creation and economic opportunity for the working class. But tech companies should go further. They should give workers an equity stake in the development of data centers, thereby delivering transformational growth in wealth and social mobility for generations to come.

Expanding stock ownership among working-class Americans would help them share in financial market gains that have consistently outpaced wages, which have been driven largely by tech advancements. The opportunity for American workers is immense, with construction wages reportedly up 30% and trillions of dollars being spent on AI development.

As Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said, “We’re talking about six-figure salaries for people who are building chip factories or computer factories or AI factories.” The AI industry can help revive the U.S. working class. “The AI revolution can and must serve American workers and their families,” as Palantir’s Bill Rivers suggests.

Giving blue-collar workers some skin in the game is the best way to win widespread support for AI data center development. America’s next generation is becoming more invested in stock ownership, as new digital platforms emerge and a boost in entrepreneurial activity makes the barrier to entry lower than ever. Extending this trend to the working class by providing share-based compensation would bring about financial growth for our country—and a better life for American workers and their families.

Stock ownership offers the potential for high long-term returns, as it hedges against inflation and grows with the economy. It is the greatest vehicle for Americans to build wealth and earn an additional income stream. At the same time, stocks give people ownership over companies—and with it, a more powerful voice in the future of their business activity.

One of the biggest critiques of free markets today is that the gateway to accumulating wealth, such as private equity and seed round venture investing, is closed off to the lower classes. Such tensions have provoked extreme economic proposals, including wealth taxes and asset seizure. Giving workers an ownership stake in pivotal AI development would overcome the perception of an economic system that benefits only the elite, helping to mend the political divide between the classes.

Part of the economic strife in America over the past century has come from a belief that not everyone shares in the prosperity brought by technological advancement. AI is facing the same fears. Winning the American people over clearly requires some changes in strategy. So why not try stock options?