Tuesday’s midterm elections produced a clear loser along with the Republican party: the data center industry.
\n\nCNBC reports that data center-related measures appeared on ballots in at least 41 jurisdictions across 10 states, and voters approved moratoriums or restrictions in 40 of those. This is one of the clearest signs that the midterm elections were in fact the “AI election.”
\n\nIn Ohio, at least 14 municipalities passed bans or restrictions on data center development, including the town of Sunbury, where Amazon has proposed a $2 million datacenter project. Maine saw eight municipalities pass temporary moratoriums. In Emporio, Kansas, voters approved a ban on high-impact data centers after a 1,000-acre, gigawatt-scale project was recently proposed for the area.
\n\nThe lone exception came in Hardwood, North Dakota, a town with fewer than 1,000 residents, where voters rejected a bill that would have imposed restrictions on datacenter development.
\n\nThe anti-data center wave reached governor’s races too. In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa beat Republican Greg Abbott, a historic result, after campaigning on moratoriums on datacenter construction, more community input, and tighter restrictions on the industry. Abbott himself had already backed away from his earlier welcome mat for datacenters in the closing stretch of his…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/
