Highlights
- Lame-duck Congress might actually do something: speed up energy projects
- Data centers lost the midterms
- AI has come for Arizona’s water
- Voters in Texas agree: They hate data centers
- Data center backlash is uniting America
- The People of Utah vs. Kevin O’Leary
- Is this the future of America?
- Use this map to find the data centers in your backyard
- Data centers are coming for rural America
Lame-duck Congress might actually do something: speed up energy projects
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
A massive permitting bill that could help energy projects come online much quicker and potentially lower utility bills for Americans is advancing with bipartisan support. And while it could be a catalyst for lots of clean energy, it could also speed up polluting projects and limit oversight of new data centers.
With data centers demanding more electricity for AI, environmental advocates fear that developers could take advantage of the reforms to evade public scrutiny and rely more heavily on fossil fuels. The bill sacrifices caution for speed, limiting environmental reviews and preventing communities from stopping a project from moving forward by taking it to court.
“We are a data center first company,” AMD CEO Lisa Su says.
The comments, made in an interview with Yahoo Finance, come after the chipmaker reported its “largest and most profitable” quarter in history. Su expects AMD’s data center business to grow 50 percent from Q3 to Q4, calling the growth a “testament to how important computing is” to the AI boom.
OpenAI is stepping back from NDAs for data center projects
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Following this week’s midterms where voters resoundingly voiced their opposition to data center expansion, OpenAI today announced new commitments to communities where it is working on data center projects, including that it won’t use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with public officials.
Many data center projects have come under scrutiny for relying on NDAs to hide discussions between developers and local officials. However, OpenAI says it is now allowing “only narrow protections covering legitimate security information, trade secrets, or proprietary or competitively sensitive information.” In October, Amazon announced it would no longer use NDAs with government agencies it works with on data center projects.
This week in the big AI data center buildout.
AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:
Data centers lost the midterms
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Data center developers are poised to face a more restrictive building environment after voters across the country voted in candidates who favor moratoriums and ballot measures that put more obstacles on their expansion, delivering a stinging blow to a central pillar of the AI industry.
Of voters polled by NBC News on Election Day, 76 percent said they opposed data centers in their communities. Dozens of local communities voted directly to restrict development through ballot measures. And upset winners like Texas Democratic Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa and Michigan’s Democratic Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed support moratoriums on development.
Maine Republican Susan Collins concedes Senate seat in a tech-fueled race.
The longtime senator counted tech executives like Palantir CEO Alex Karp and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz among her donors. Democratic challenger Troy Jackson also received some billionaire support, but no obvious tech ties. Maine almost became the first state to pause data centers, before the governor vetoed the moratorium.
Democrat projected to win Ohio seat that Republicans warned could spell trouble for data centers.
NBC News projects Democrat Sherrod Brown will win back his former Senate seat from Republican Jon Husted, who Brown had labeled “the face of data centers.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a leaked August memo that if Husted loses “and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one.”
Data center-dense Texas turns blue.
Both Democrats James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa are projected by NBC News to win their Senate and gubernatorial races, respectively. Hinojosa has called for a moratorium on data center development in the state, while Talarico has favored ending tax incentives and creating an “AI dividend” for Americans to share in profits.
OpenAI is quietly renaming data centers ‘compute campuses’
People hate data centers. They’re loud, resource-hungry eyesores that are so profoundly unpopular they have managed to achieve the near-impossible in today’s polarized political landscape: genuine bipartisan opposition. But what about “compute campuses”? Those sound lovely, right?
OpenAI seems to be gambling that a quiet rebrand could be all it takes to defuse the growing political backlash that threatens to derail the infrastructure fueling the AI boom.
OpenAI pitches data center power plants as a way to protect nearby areas
Image: The Verge
In an announcement on Monday, OpenAI says it will pilot its “Grid Protectors Program” at an upcoming data center in Effingham County, Georgia, where the company promises to free up to 1,000 megawatts of power during extreme weather or emergencies, enough to power air conditioners in around 700,000 homes.
The announcement comes as opposition to data centers spreads across the US, in response to massive projects that have begun development and construction, frequently with little or no input from local residents. In Utah, residents protested after Box Elder County commissioners signed off on a data center expected to consume more than double the state’s peak electricity demand in 2025, and spread hot air in the desert valley surrounding the data center.
Could data center backlash flip Florida?
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Patti Zirhut, a lifelong Republican, has been studying her ballot for weeks. Zirhut eagerly voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, but she isn’t toeing the party line this year. “My ballot is all mixed up,” she says. She’s voting for some Republicans, some independents, and even a few Democrats. Zirhut remains undecided on a few races, but of one thing she is absolutely certain: “I will not vote for Byron Donalds,” she tells me. “No way will I ever vote for him.”
Donalds, the Republican nominee in Florida’s gubernatorial election, has Trump’s endorsement, the party’s backing, and $148 million in campaign funds, much of it from the tech industry. It’s this latest point that particularly rankles Zirhut, an organizer with a group called No Data Center Hernando County, whose purpose is summed up in its name. Donalds has been a vocal supporter of the controversial developments — a fact that may now cost him votes, even among members of his own party.
Prop 45 in California could be hiding a loophole for data centers
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
A high-stakes California ballot measure pitched as a fast track for “essential” infrastructure could wind up giving data center developers a loophole to evade public scrutiny, environmental advocates warn.
Proposition 45 would shorten timelines for state-mandated environmental assessments for eligible projects and make it more difficult for residents to challenge those projects in court. Proponents say passing the measure would help alleviate the state’s housing shortage and meet rising electricity demand with new renewable energy projects. Environmental groups and some legal experts, however, warn that data center developers backing the proposition could escape scrutiny if Prop 45 becomes law.
Maine’s data center revolt will decide who controls the Senate
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, was midway through defending her record during the final debate of the midterms when an audience member cut her short.
“I’m terrified,” a man shouted. “AI data centers are destroying our climate. They are poisoning our water.” Collins brushed off the outburst, tying the man to her Democratic challenger, Troy Jackson. But the fear echoing through the auditorium wasn’t so easily dismissed. Just days before voters head to the polls, the rapid expansion of resource-hungry data centers has exploded into one of Maine’s most volatile campaign issues.
Data centers could send US climate pollution skyrocketing
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
The US power sector could release 42 percent more planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution by 2030 than it did in 2025 as it builds out more fossil fuel infrastructure to meet data center electricity demand, according to a new analysis by the Sierra Club. That would essentially wipe out 15 years of greenhouse gas reductions.
CO2 emissions from electricity generation would increase by 618 million tons by the end of the decade if planned AI projects are constructed. That’s roughly equivalent to carbon pollution from the electricity use of 128,788,523 homes in a year.
AI has come for Arizona’s water
Photo: Stephen Voss for The Verge
This week in the big AI data center buildout.
AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:
Voters in Texas agree: They hate data centers
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Ask Texas NAACP president Gary Bledsoe what it’s been like to see data center developers descend upon Austin and its surrounding suburbs and he can rattle off project after project facing opposition from locals.
There’s the fight in Taylor over plans to build a data center at a site that’s supposed to be a park. Temple, around 40 miles away, is another sore spot, Bledsoe says. The mayor and City Council members there face recall attempts over data center developments. And some 30 miles outside of Austin, San Marcos became the first city in all of Texas to ban data centers.
Highway robbers are targeting trucks carrying data center components.
NBC News reports that accelerated data center construction across the country is creating new opportunities for heists that involve phishing, corporate identity theft, and car-ramming.
Truckloads of costly equipment like servers, fiber-optic cables, computer memory chips, copper wires and bitcoin mining machines crisscrossing America’s highways have become prime targets for organized criminal groups looking for big payoffs, according to law enforcement and industry experts.
Data center backlash is uniting America
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
If there’s one issue that seems to activate all kinds of voters in 2026, it’s data centers. The rapid buildout of these massive server storage facilities — and the infrastructure construction and expenses that come with them — has sparked local opposition in communities across the country and become a major issue in many congressional and gubernatorial campaigns.
At the same time, tech money has been pouring into many of these races. Leading the Future, a super PAC backed by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, has already spent $45 million in a year. And Public First Action, an Anthropic-backed group that says it supports AI safeguards, says it’s raised $80 million. Both have funded Democratic and Republican-aligned groups. Other super PACs see an opportunity to push for stricter AI policies, like the recently created Tomorrow Together, which launched $4 million in ads for battleground House races, with messages about data center development and AI safety.
Anthropic is burning gas to feed the AI boom
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
As it prepares to go public, Anthropic’s S-1 filing makes generative AI’s methane dependency glaringly obvious.
In documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Monday, Anthropic acknowledges that data centers are becoming increasingly reliant on “natural gas” — the fossil fuel industry’s marketing term for what is primarily methane — leaving the company’s AI data center buildout vulnerable to rising fuel costs and existing supply chain constraints. And in a possible catch-22, Anthropic admits that rising global temperatures — a symptom of burning fossil fuels — will increase the company’s operating costs.
It’s a good time to sell gray paint.
The New York Times reports that data centers are “painting gray concrete and gray steel with more gray,” leading to an unexpected boom for paint manufacturers. Gravel producers and wiring companies are also enjoying an uptick, “creating a long tail of unlikely winners.”
Data centers could erase decades of air quality gains
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
A rush of new data centers could bring air pollution roaring back to levels not seen since the 2000s in Texas, which has become ground zero for the physical infrastructure behind generative AI.
New and proposed data centers are demanding a tremendous amount of electricity. How developers and utilities meet that demand — with gas turbines or renewable energy — will determine just how dirty things will get. So far, though, things are looking grim.
This week in the big AI data center buildout.
AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:
Trump says paying communities a “dividend” could make data centers more popular.
Continuing to push the widely unpopular data center projects, Trump said in a Truth Social post that some of them “have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck.” His plan sounds lot like Meta’s approach on the Hyperion project in Louisiana, where Mark Zuckerberg has touted $50,000 bonus checks for teachers despite a secretive approval process residents didn’t know much about.
Texas is still permitting data centers despite a supposed statewide moratorium.
Governor Greg Abbott announced a permitting pause for data centers in September. But state agencies are still processing permits, according to an analysis of public records by advocacy groups Public Citizen and FracTracker. The governor’s office, however, denies approving any data center-related permits.
Source: The Verge · Verge Staff, Justine Calma
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