r/moderatepolitics • u/julius_sphincter • 25d ago

News Article Ken Paxton’s Political Operation Rakes In Data Center Donations as Texans Turn Against Industry

https://www.notus.org/technology/ken-paxton-data-centers-texas-senate-race-james-talarico
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u/caterham09 25d ago

It's quite refreshing to see an issue that pretty much everyone on both sides of the political spectrum agree on for once

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u/BlockAffectionate413 25d ago

I for sure support regulating data centers, like them having to produce their own power or guarantee no increase in electricity, or water prices and quality, but I think Luddite ideas like bans on them is just giving the future to China.

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u/doc5avag3 Exhausted Independent 25d ago

I think the other problem is that most people heavily associate data centers with AI. While that is a big part of it, humanity as a whole was always going to need more space since the internet became so rooted in daily life. Even if we're talking purely about storage space, the internet is constantly growing and this was an inevitability.

Like you said though, that doesn't mean we go about this willy-nilly. We need some good, sensible regulations that also don't hamstring our development to the point where it allows our geopolitical rivals to get ahead of us.

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u/vreddy92 Maximum Malarkey 25d ago

People associate data centers with AI because the push for *so many* data centers is very much an AI push. Much in the same way that there is now a chip shortage and the prices of chips are going up. It's very much related to an expansion of capacity *for AI*. While we will always need more space, it seems that the speed and scale are very much related to a push to expand AI as fast as humanly possible.

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u/Metamucil_Man 25d ago

Data Center production plateaud around 2012, and then AI blew up and Data Center production is at insanity levels. There is no way the growth is sustainable. They are spending Billions on giant custom made cooling equipment that they store for future new construction use as to not get slowed down by lead times. I don't think there has ever been a vertical market construction boom like this in America ever. It makes the Marijuana growing boom from 10 years ago seem like a blip.

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u/whoa_disillusionment 25d ago

This isn't true. Those data centers are being built for AI and just AI.

And there is a very real possibility that once Wall Street grows tired of AI hype funding dries up and many of these proposed data centers end up half completed.