This month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, unveiled a set of sweeping recommendations to rein in rampant data center development, urging Texas lawmakers to aggressively regulate the tech industry in a state that has a reputation for welcoming new development with open arms. At the same time, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, the Democratic leader of a state known for regulatory restrictions, has declined to say whether she will sign a first-of-its-kind bill passed by her state legislature imposing a one-year moratorium on large-scale data centers.
Welcome to the weird world of data center politics, where the usual partisan scripts around energy and natural resources don’t apply — yet.
Facilities housing massive amounts of computing equipment are springing up across the U.S. to quench the tech industry’s unslakable thirst for artificial intelligence. These AI-ready data centers, which consume more energy than the traditional cloud-computing centers that already exist to host and store various aspects of modern digital life, have become a political flashpoint at lightning speed — reshaping local and state politics from coast to coast as Americans grapple with high energy costs, natural resource depletion, and the repercussions of megadevelopment.
