US voters decide local measures on limiting data centres
Residents in several US states, including Ohio and Illinois, will vote on Tuesday on dozens of local measures to delay, ban or set new rules for data centres. Opposition to these AI buildings crosses party lines.
On Tuesday, alongside the US midterm elections for Congress, some Americans will be deciding more than who represents them: they will also help determine whether data centres get built near their homes, and under what rules. Votes on local measures will take place in places ranging from Ohio to Illinois.
Data centres are giant buildings housing the chips and servers that run AI services such as ChatGPT and Claude. Until recently few people had heard of them, but the AI boom has put them at the centre of a major infrastructure build-out. Their rapid growth and heavy electricity use have prompted backlash in the US and elsewhere in the world.
Polling
A Gallup poll in May found that seven in ten Americans oppose a data centre being built in their area. In Gallup's latest survey, released Thursday, the issue ranked ahead of climate change in importance for residents ahead of the midterms.
Local measures
According to Reuters, voters in 38 local jurisdictions will consider at least 41 measures to delay, ban or set new rules for data centres. Twenty-one of them are in Ohio, where Democrats and Republicans are joining forces against the facilities.
The issue has thus become one that unites voters across party lines.
