US VOTERS HAVE backed restrictions on data centres in a series of local ballots as part of this year’s midterms.

The voting patterns highlight a growing global opposition to the infrastructure.

Ireland has long hosted debates about data centres, which use significant amounts of water and electricity without creating many jobs or other valuable outputs. 

On Tuesday, voters in communities across 10 states had their say on 41 data centre-related measures, with many backing restrictions on new facilities or measures that give residents a greater say over where they can be built.

The issue featured in a number of high-profile political races, including in Texas, where incoming governor Gina Hinojosa campaigned for a moratorium on new data centres.

X owner Elon Musk donated heavily in an attempt to influence numerous races across the US to support pro-data centre or oppose anti-data centre candidates like Hinojosa.

“Data centres in space looking pretty appealing right now,” he wrote in a post on X on Wednesday in response to the elections.

To ban or not to ban?

Votes specifically about data centres did not all ask the same question.

Some proposed outright moratoriums like in Hubbard, Ohio, where preliminary figures showed around 77% of voters backing a ban on data centres.

The city is close to where Donald Trump held a rally last month promoting his administration’s support for the AI industry.

Alhambra in California likewise voted to ban data centres outright by around 82%.

Voters in other locations opted for temporary restrictions.

In Wells, Maine, around 82% of voters supported a 180-day pause on data-centre development.

And in Janesville, Wisconsin, around 62% backed a measure requiring a public vote on certain major developments at a former General Motors site, where an 11-building data-centre campus has been proposed.

Not every ballot was binding: in Joliet, Illinois, around 79% voted against an advisory proposal to support the construction of AI data centres.

Nor did every proposal pass.

In Harwood, North Dakota, a proposal requiring additional scrutiny of major industrial developments, including data centres, was defeated.

The proposal followed concerns about transparency around a $3 billion (€2.68 billion) data-centre project being built nearby, after the city’s mayor signed a non-disclosure agreement with its developer.

Don’t mess with Texas

The most significant data centre result today, however, came in a vote that wasn’t directly about the infrastructure.

In the race to become Texas state governor, Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated incumbent Republican governor Greg Abbott, turning the state blue for the first time since 1988.

Hinojosa made opposition to data-centre expansion a prominent part of her campaign, calling for a moratorium on them and stronger protections for residents.

But in a sign of how much the issue resonated with voters, the pledge wasn’t a simple case of Democrats versus Republicans.

Abbott himself had already directed regulators in the state to halt new environmental permits for data centres while an audit was carried out.

That move followed criticism from Hinojosa accusing her rival of allowing data centres in the state to multiply.

How much did the issue matter?

Despite not featuring on the ballot everywhere, opposition to data centres and technology more generally has become a national issue in the US.

One exit poll suggested that 56% of voters said AI and data centres were a crucial or major factor in their vote for Congress.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that views were positive, but it does indicate that it’s an issue voters were thinking about on Tuesday.

A separate ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll from October backed up the idea there is a negative view towards building data centres.

It found that two-thirds of people were opposed to building data centres in their own communities – a figure that included Republicans.

The same poll found that 57% majority of Americans believed AI is bad for society.

As in Ireland, the opposition to data centres has been driven by concerns about their demands on electricity and water supplies, as well as their potential impact on bills and the environment.

In Sunbury, Ohio, residents spent months campaigning against a proposed $2 billion (€1.78 billion) Amazon data-centre campus after locals raised concerns about noise – something that Dubliners living near a data centre in Clondalkin also recently complained about. 

Supporters of data centres argue that they bring investment, jobs and tax revenue, including from Big Tech firms.

But such pronouncements can often obscure the reality on the ground for locals.

In Memphis, Tennessee, local officials welcomed Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI when it chose the city for its Colossus supercomputer, hailing the investment as an opportunity for jobs and technological growth.

However, the project has since faced opposition from residents concerned about air pollution from the gas turbines used to help power it, in an area already burdened by industrial pollution.

This week’s votes are also unlikely to be the end of the debate.

In Ohio, campaigners who helped communities put local restrictions on the ballot are hoping to bring a proposed statewide ban on large data centres to voters next year.