AI data centers comprehensively defeated at US midterm elections(www.tomshardware.com)
31 pointsby rndsignals4 hours ago7 comments
  • louiereedersonan hour ago
    For those questioning this conclusion, 4 of top 10 states by GW of DC under development flipped parties and elected governors that made curtailing DC development or increasing regs part of their platform. That's 130GW of the ~350GW pipeline in the US.

    This obviously matters. These states have the leverage. Look at the issues Oracle is having in NM.

    https://dcmap.us/insights/pipeline/ https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/24/oracle-data-center-force-maj...

  • marsten20 minutes ago
    This will encourage developers to put these facilities in more human-friendly places. I knew the clock was ticking when xAI started expanding aggressively in suburban Memphis. These facilities are loud, they emit pollution (when power is generated onsite), and they need very little staff. They should be located away from population centers.
  • tocs33 hours ago
    It is not as if data center development is suddenly ended. Democrats have paired up with tech in the past. Tech might want to make friends with those that hold the purse stings. Regulatory capture is still in the cards. Projects on the way are still on the way.

    It might be that tech would like some regulations / laws that slow data center development (maybe a good thing) if they think it has just turned into an arms race that has gotten out of hand. Investors might think this also (S&P 500 up ~1.5% as I write this).

    • Klonoar28 minutes ago
      > Tech might want to make friends…

      They might find that tricky after they sold out to right wing causes last election.

    • elmer22 hours ago
      Regulations just mean Democrats get to pick the winners, which will most likely match donations.
      • iAMkenough2 hours ago
        Which is what Republicans were already doing, while agreeing to NDAs that kept their constituents in the dark.

        With the mandate from voters, hopefully we see less secret development and more open communication about the deals being cut.

        • tocs3an hour ago
          I am a little hopeful here in Texas. We have needed change for a while. Still, we are talking about politicians and while there maybe be a mandate from voters it is a long and narrow road to solutions that are good for everybody (especially the constituents).
          • iAMkenoughan hour ago
            The nice thing about politicians is they can be held accountable by constituents, per the Constitution.

            Data center developers, who should be equally distrusted (but seem to get a pass), are not beholden to you.

            It will take developers and politicians working together to find a solution, rather than let developers do whatever they can to maximize profits without regulation or public process.

  • SwellJoe3 hours ago
    Maybe we'll be able to buy computers again sometime before the end of the decade.
    • lostloginan hour ago
      The scale of the market fuckery is incredible. We are trying to install an MR scanner. Chillers are becoming hard to get and on long back order. The supplier says that the units we want are not really the right units for data centres but due to shortages of the units data centres really want, they are picking up alternatives.
      • phil2143 minutes ago
        It just shows the utter hollowing out of the US industrial base to me.

        Everything has been cut to the bone so any blip in demand cannot - at any price - be effectively responded to. Even if you were exceptionally good at being able to double internal capacity, the supply chain all the way from raw materials to skilled labor pool your vendors may need just isn’t there.

        This latest datacenter bubble is just the last and most acute symptom of this problem I’ve noted in my lifetime. Hyper-financialization does that to an economy.

        The best anyone can do is outbid peter to rob paul.

  • Refreeze5224an hour ago
    Maybe now the tech oligarchs and their lackeys will realize that anti-AI and anti-data center sentiment isn't just some Chinese influence campaign.
  • stevenwoo3 hours ago
    Florida still elected pro data center governor so it ignores that in very short article.
    • Klonoar24 minutes ago
      I say this out of genuine curiosity: does Florida even make sense for data centers with the increasing weather patterns there? Feels like every time I read news about Florida, if it’s not political, it’s some natural disaster.

      I assume there must be companies doing things like this there but would the big co’s actually want anything there?

    • louiereedersonan hour ago
      Florida is immaterial and effectively irrelevant to the DC buildout
    • Refreeze5224an hour ago
      And you seem to be unaware that Florida was the one single outlier in an otherwise massive rejection of of the status quo.