00:00The ballot box just handed the data center industry its biggest warning yet.
00:05Voters backed limits on local data center construction in 40 of 41 measures.
00:11And the fallout is already hitting city halls, governor's offices and Wall Street.
00:18Voters just delivered a verdict on data centers.
00:21And it was not close.
00:23In the midterm elections, ballot measures proposing moratoriums or restrictions on local data center construction appeared in 10 states.
00:34And voters backed the limits in 40 of 41 of them.
00:38With 21 of those measures in Ohio alone, across all of 2026, voters have opposed data centers in 46 of
00:4747 measures.
00:49Harwood, North Dakota, was the lone community to vote in favor.
00:55An NBC News exit poll found 76% of voters would oppose a new data center in their own community.
01:03And more than half called AI and data centers a major or crucial factor in their congressional vote.
01:10For an industry that treated local approval as a formality, it is a stunning reversal.
01:17That backlash isn't staying at the ballot box.
01:20In Idaho, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean has proposed an immediate moratorium on mega data centers within city limits.
01:29With a public hearing scheduled for the City Council's Tuesday meeting on November 10th, if it passes, the pause takes
01:38effect right away.
01:39The city currently has no applications for a mega data center.
01:43So this is a preemptive move.
01:46McLean says the absence of a statewide moratorium left cities exposed.
01:51And she argues these facilities create major demands for electricity, water and land while generating noise, heat and emissions.
02:00In her words, she is pulling the emergency brake to protect Boisians and their precious natural resources.
02:08Boise now joins a growing number of Idaho communities that have issued moratoriums of their own.
02:16Idaho isn't the only place hitting pause.
02:19In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Governor Greg Abbott with 57% of the vote.
02:27And she has called for an immediate moratorium on new data centers until the legislature adds.
02:34Protections.
02:35The stakes are enormous.
02:37Texas holds roughly one-fifth of a 253-gigawatt planned data center pipeline in.
02:44The United States.
02:46Her proposed pause would not stop permitted projects or the 119 already under.
02:52Construction.
02:53But it could freeze what comes next.
02:55Analysts at CleanView Energy say existing and proposed state moratoriums now cover about 40% of planned U.S. projects.
03:05Senator Bernie Sanders has floated a national moratorium.
03:09Though the idea is seen as a long shot.
03:12Still, the direction of travel is unmistakable.
03:17And the industry is already reacting.
03:20Microsoft has reportedly declined an option to more than double the computing power it rents from.
03:27NSScale at a Barstow, Texas data center.
03:30The existing campus.
03:32A 240-megawatt site.
03:35Stays in place.
03:37But the option covered a second phase of 700 megawatts that could have been worth tens of.
03:42Billions of dollars.
03:44The Financial Times says the decision was made months before NSScale filed for its IPO.
03:51Separately, Microsoft is reportedly reviewing partnerships with CoreWeave, Nebius, Iron,
03:58NSScale and Oracle to favor its own wholly owned data centers.
04:03And is winding down a 2023 Oracle deal that ran on older NVIDIA chips.
04:08Oracle says demand remains strong.
04:12But the message from one of the biggest buyers is hard to miss.
04:17Yet some builders aren't slowing down.
04:20SpaceX is tied to a proposed $24 billion AI data center campus on 444 acres near Starbase in South Texas.
04:30And the design leans on a strategy that is spreading fast.
04:34Bring your own power.
04:36The campus would use dedicated on-site natural gas generation rather than waiting in line for the
04:42grid.
04:43Public hearings are scheduled for December 9th.
04:46It is worth being careful here.
04:49Because proposed master plans are not the same as commissioned capacity.
04:53And plenty of announced projects never get built.
04:57But the plan shows how developers are responding to power constraints and political pressure at the
05:02same time.
05:04By promising to build self-contained campuses that, at least on paper, don't lean on local
05:11rate payers.
05:13Companies are also trying to answer the backlash.
05:16On November 5th, OpenAI published what it calls a national community compact.
05:22For campuses it owns and operates, OpenAI says it would pay for the electricity and the
05:28added infrastructure, publish annual reports, and end non-disclosure agreements with public
05:35officials.
05:36With exceptions for security and trade secret information.
05:40The timing is no accident.
05:42The House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act in September, which would require operators to
05:49cover associated infrastructure costs.
05:51And on November 6th, Congressional Democrats said they plan bills on data center power costs,
05:58independent model testing, and AI liability once they take control in January.
06:04Those bills would still need the president's signature or a two-thirds vote to override a veto.
06:10So the real test is yet to come.
06:14Wall Street, meanwhile, isn't waiting for the policy fights to play out.
06:19The NASDAQ 100 fell more than 6% on Thursday.
06:23And the pain was sharpest among the so-called neoclouds.
06:27Core Weave and Nebius each dropped 16% for the week.
06:32And IRON fell 10%.
06:34Core Weave's bonds due in 2032 now yield more than 16%.
06:39The logic is simple.
06:41GPU loans assume chips start earning revenue quickly.
06:45So a 12-month delay means paying interest on idle hardware.
06:50Gartner's John Lovelock predicts 80% of independent neoclouds could cease operations by
06:562030, while analyst Dan Ives estimates 10% of data centers will not happen now.
07:04Hyperscalers are seen as more insulated.
07:07But even they face questions about whether capacity can come online on time.
07:13And still, some big money keeps flowing.
07:17On November 4th, Google signed credit support agreements backing about $19 billion in financing for
07:25Anthropics lease commitments at Tara Wolf's campus in Hawesville, Kentucky, and a Fluor Engineering,
07:32Procurement and Construction Agreement was also executed.
07:36The deal shows how the strongest balance sheets can still unlock capital while smaller players
07:42struggle.
07:43A filing shows Anthropics purchase and lease commitments total roughly $895 billion, with
07:52about $70 billion due in the year after September 30th.
07:55And the largest counterparties are Broadcom, Google, and Amazon.
08:00The filing doesn't give locations or megawatts for most of those commitments.
08:05It is a reminder that while communities are saying no in some places, the money behind the build-out
08:12remains enormous.
08:14Thanks for watching, if you found this useful, subscribe, leave a like, and drop a comment,
08:22it helps us cover more of these stories.
