00:00Ohio voters are about to decide whether data centers get to stay.
00:04A new poll finds only 11% of Americans want an AI data center in their community.
00:11And the backlash is now reshaping the midterm elections.
00:15Here is what is happening.
00:18Ohio has become the epicenter of the data center backlash.
00:22And voters are about to have their say.
00:25Ballotpedia counts 39 local ballot measures across 8 states this November.
00:31And 21 of them are in Ohio.
00:34Which already has 154 operating data centers with 84 more in the works.
00:40A UMass Amherst poll found just 11% of Americans would support an AI data center in
00:46their community.
00:48While 65% oppose one.
00:51The politics are spilling into the Senate race.
00:54Where Democrat Sherrod Brown's ads call Republican Senator John Husted the face of data centers.
01:01Three Kansas communities, including Ottawa, will vote on bans too.
01:07And activists like Nick Owens and Jen Belt are leading the campaigns.
01:13Perhaps the most surprising turn in this backlash is happening in Texas.
01:17According to reporting on the midterms, Republican Governor Greg Abbott, previously one of the
01:25strongest champions of the industry, issued a moratorium on new data center permits last
01:31month, under pressure from his Democratic opponent.
01:35In Pennsylvania, both candidates for governor have now distanced themselves from their earlier
01:40support for data centers.
01:43The industry is fighting back.
01:45The pro-industry super PAC leading the future.
01:49Which backs candidates of both parties.
01:52Argues opponents are targeting the worst case projects.
01:56And co-leader Josh Vlasto says statewide bans are an overcorrection.
02:02Investigations have also reported links between the group and an AI-generated news site and paid
02:08influencers.
02:10The backlash is no longer a partisan story.
02:14That wave of caution has now reached San Francisco.
02:17Mayor Daniel Lurie signed a city-wide, 45-day moratorium on data center development.
02:24After the Board of Supervisors approved it unanimously, Supervisor Shaman Walton introduced the measure.
02:32And Board President Rafael Mandelman moved it quickly.
02:36The city says it needs time to assess the effects of data centers and write regulatory controls.
02:42With electricity costs, water use and community impacts at the center of the debate, San Francisco
02:50has at least six data centers, two of them in Bayview-Hunters Point.
02:55And Walton notes the zoning rules do not clearly define them.
02:59Lurie says the goal is a framework that keeps electricity rates low.
03:04It echoes New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul paused large projects for up to a year.
03:12And the reason this backlash keeps gaining momentum comes down to the power grid.
03:17The U.S. Department of Energy issued an emergency order to help prevent blackouts
03:23in effect through October 16 and covering the Mid-Atlantic.
03:27According to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the order prompted PJM interconnection to direct
03:34data centers and other large customers to switch to backup generation if necessary.
03:40Doe cited a high rate of planned generator outages during the autumn maintenance season and says
03:47the country has 35 gigawatts of unused backup generation nationwide.
03:53PJM separately issued a maximum generation alert for October 13 and 14 because of above normal
04:01temperatures.
04:02Though that alert required no customer action, data centers are widely blamed for rising electricity
04:09prices, which is why every grid warning draws scrutiny.
04:14State lawmakers see one answer to the strain.
04:18Make data centers bring their own electricity.
04:21In 2025, seven states, including Oklahoma, Ohio, Utah, Texas, New Hampshire, West Virginia and
04:32New Mexico, enacted laws easing self-generation.
04:36Texas Senate Bill 6 lets large loads connect directly to standalone generation and requires
04:42data centers to use backup generators during emergencies.
04:47This year the proposals are going further.
04:50Connecticut's House Bill 5469 would require loads of 50 megawatts and above to take all their
04:58power power from a co-located or off-grid source.
05:02Maryland proposals would bar large customers from connecting unless a quarter of capacity comes
05:08from backup storage or demand response.
05:12And PJM has asked federal regulators to approve a rule requiring data centers to bring their own
05:18power, leaving cost allocation rules to the states.
05:24Yet despite that regulatory wave, construction is pressing forward, and some utilities are
05:31finding ways to make it pay.
05:33On October 16, Nisource announced a 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for the company's
05:39planned data center campus in La Porte, Indiana.
05:44The deal adds 1,100 megawatts of power resources starting in 2028, along with 600 megawatts
05:53of battery storage to support the grid.
05:55Microsoft will pay for the new generation and transmission equipment needed to serve its
06:01data center.
06:02Nisource projects savings of $1.75 billion for existing NIPSCO customers.
06:09Over the life of the contract, up to $140 a year for each customer, Nisource Chief Executive
06:17Lloyd Yates said affordability is not separate from economic development.
06:21Microsoft broke ground on the site in June.
06:26The technology behind all this demand may also be getting more efficient.
06:31Microsoft says it has finished pre-training MyBase2, a 2.8 trillion parameter mixture of
06:39experts model that activates 80 billion parameters per request.
06:44Microsoft says it needed far less pre-training compute than
06:48DeepSeq v4 ProBase.
06:51Mustafa Suleiman reportedly told employees the model beat a comparable OpenAI base model while
06:58using about one quarter of the compute, though those comparisons come from private tests and
07:05have not been independently verified.
07:08Separately, CNBC reported on October 12th that Microsoft will mainly use its own Maya chips for AI inference,
07:16reducing its dependence on NVIDIA.
07:19If efficiency gains like these hold up, they could change how many data centers the industry
07:25really needs, and where it builds them.
07:29And the financial commitment behind all of this is staggering.
07:33Stateline reports the data center build-out represents roughly $10 trillion in investment.
07:39Larger than the dot-com, electrification and railroad booms data center construction has more than doubled
07:47in two years to about $85 billion annually, while all other construction fell 8 percent.
07:55New data center value rose $48 billion since 2024, while new houses and apartments fell 29 billion.
08:04Columbia Business School's Stain Van Nuweberg puts the impact near 4 percent of GDP.
08:10About twice the railroad boom, Texas leads projected costs at $638 billion over three years.
08:19Ahead of Virginia, Ohio and Georgia, but the International Monetary Fund warns weaker AI profits could trigger a correction.
08:28And a Carnegie Mellon analysis estimates electricity bills could rise 8 percent nationally.
