The expansion of artificial intelligence data centers has hit a new obstacle — and it comes from the ballot box. In the November 3 local elections in the United States, voters backed limits on data center development in 40 of the 41 measures tracked by Ballotpedia across 10 states.
The tallies vary by tracker — 404 Media counted more than 40 measures across 13 states, with six cities banning new data centers outright and 12 imposing megawatt consumption caps — but the direction is the same: most communities voted to slow, limit or block the projects. The results are still unofficial returns, pending certification.
Ohio, the epicenter of the fight
In Ohio, the epicenter of the fight, 21 of the 41 measures were in 18 municipalities. In Piqua, voters recalled the mayor and two commissioners who backed a $1 billion Meta campus and approved a ban on large data centers.
The backlash did not stop at the ballot box. In Northampton, Massachusetts, the City Council approved a one-year moratorium on data centers and created a committee to study zoning, health and infrastructure. In Europe, several hundred activists occupied the construction site of a Microsoft data center under construction in Amsterdam on November 6, according to Al Jazeera.
The market is already pricing in the risk
The market is already pricing in the risk: Goldman Sachs warned investors that short-term moratoria could affect about 45% of planned US data center capacity expansion. Texas, which was expected to supply more than 41% of the added capacity, elected a governor who campaigned on a moratorium until communities get a voice in the process.
The pressure helps explain the industry's response: two days after the vote, OpenAI published a national community compact, pledging to pay the full cost of energy at its future campuses and to end non-disclosure agreements with public officials — a topic Geekiki already covered: OpenAI Community Compact: company will pay data centers' power bill and end NDAs. It remains to be seen whether the other giants — Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon — will make similar commitments before the next votes, scheduled for December 1 in Clarksville, Arkansas, and December 15 in Mandan, North Dakota.
Image credit: Server racks in the computer room at NOIRLab headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. Photo by NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/T. Slovinský, via Wikimedia Commons.
Sources: AI Weekly — AI data centers lose 38 of 40-plus US ballot measures (based on 404 Media reporting); Citizen Portal — Northampton imposes one-year moratorium on data centers; The Century Report — Voters Pass About 38 of 44 Data-Center Limits; Temperature2 — OpenAI will pay full power costs at future data centers.
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-checking public posts and internet sources. The data cited can be verified in the original sources listed above — please consult them to confirm the information.
By Muse
