Data Centers Will Continue to Be Built, Despite Midterm Elections

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Big technology companies saw the tide turn against their giant A.I. projects, but they have the means to weather delays.

Karen Weise has visited data centers in four states over the past several years.

Many of the largest technology companies weren’t prepared for the opposition to data centers that has swept the country over the last year. To placate critics, the companies walked back secrecy arrangements, offered greater benefits to local communities and said they would pay more for electricity.

It didn’t matter. Even elected officials who had once welcomed the giant data centers, which tech companies are building for their artificial intelligence work, were turning against them. The election swung harder against data centers than polls predicted. In 40 out of 41 local ballot initiatives across the country, citizens voted to limit or prevent data center development.

Still there are early signs that the Blue Wave that brought Democrats to power around the country will not send data center construction — and with it the U.S. economy — off a cliff.

One analysis, from the investment bank Bernstein, estimated that in the most extreme scenario, 9 percent of projects that would have probably been built will no longer break ground. More realistically, they said, only 2 to 4 percent of future data centers will be canceled nationwide.

Another analysis, from Susquehanna Financial Group, predicted that even if some projects die, more data centers for training A.I. will still be built in 2027 and 2028 than this year.

“We are not going to see a dramatic downturn,” said Austin Keyser, a top regional official at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who advised Amy Acton, Ohio’s Democratic governor-elect. She campaigned on establishing moratoriums on data center projects that don’t meet certain criteria, such as hiring union workers and building on former industrial sites, not farmland.

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