AILSA CHANG, HOST:
We've been talking a lot about who was on the ballot yesterday, but now we're going to talk about what, because there was one issue that did remain prominent throughout this entire election.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE #1: Stop data centers.
UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE #2: Fight against this unchecked development of data centers.
UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE #3: The noise, the dust and the fact that this is being built in their own backyards.
UNIDENTIFIED CANDIDATE #4: Make sure these data centers don't flood our communities and raise our electric rates.
CHANG: All right. We're hearing the voices there of a few candidates talking about data centers on social media ahead of Election Day. Almost 30 jurisdictions voted to ban or restrict data centers. And many Democratic candidates who promised to curb data center growth won their governors' races. Reporter Molly Taft is with me now. They're a senior writer for WIRED. Welcome.
MOLLY TAFT: Thanks for having me.
CHANG: Let's talk about all these different ballot measures that did pass. I mean, there were a lot of promises from governors-elect to limit data centers. Can you just walk us through the range of the different approaches that voters chose?
TAFT: Generally, I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who said what's happening right now is totally fine. Everyone should be fine with unchecked development. A lot of people weighed in at least for some kind of regulation of the industry. The data center industry itself has said, look, people are having a really strong reaction to data center development. We are totally open to being regulated.
CHANG: Yeah.
TAFT: So it's a big range - right? - from let's regulate an industry that was previously unregulated, all the way over to let's pause development. Which we did see a handful of pretty high-profile candidates actually propose moratoriums.
CHANG: Let's talk about one of those examples. Texas, which is a...
TAFT: Yes.
CHANG: ...Major data center hub. The new governor-elect there, a Democrat, Gina Hinojosa, she wants a moratorium on all new data center projects. How do you think that's going to shake out in Texas?
TAFT: Over the past year, until very recently, the government of Texas welcomed them with open arms, right? Governor Greg Abbott was very open to data center development, was very excited about it until a couple of months ago when he was facing a tough reelection campaign and he started to walk back some of his previous statements. But what's remarkable for me is that Gina Hinojosa actually campaigned about Abbott being too soft on data centers. She said he's not doing enough.
So if you look at her platform, there's kind of a little bit of room to interpret what she actually wants for Texas. You could have a little bit more of an industry-friendly moratorium. Or you could go all the way - right? - and really impose extremely strict regulations on the industry. So the real question is going to be balancing industry interests, allowing some development to go through and then also responding to what your voters actually want out of you. This is kind of a big landscape for politicians.
CHANG: OK, yes, there is this range of responses that we saw from so many different states. That said, we still have a president, President Trump, who's pushing AI pretty hard. So what do you think the next move will be for AI companies across the country, given they still have two years of Trump in the White House?
TAFT: Yeah. It's going to be a tightrope, for sure. I think, going back to what I said, they are very open to being regulated or at least appearing to be regulated, right? And the administration has offered some ways for them to look more friendly to constituents, right? The White House pushed a Ratepayer Protection Act earlier this year, inviting companies to sign on, basically, to a nonbinding pledge that says, we won't raise rates. So I think, for tech companies over the next two years, they are going to be facing, you know, new politicians both in Washington and, importantly, in governor's offices, who want to impose some form of regulations, who want to formalize regulations.
I'm not sure how the White House is going to feel about seeing this referendum on basically one of its big issues over the past two years, which is pushing specifically American AI and using data centers as an excuse to kind of deregulate a lot of environmental protections and make sure we get these built as fast as possible. So the collision of those two interests is going to be, I think, one of the bigger political stories to watch over the next few years.
CHANG: Molly Taft is a senior writer for WIRED. Thank you so much, Molly.
TAFT: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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