Texas was the new epicenter of the AI data center buildout. That might be kaput.

Texas is the fastest-growing data center market in the US and ground zero for Big Tech’s largest AI buildouts. But the blue wave that swept the Lone Star State may jeopardize that position. Democrat James Talarico won the US Senate seat against Ken Paxton. Gina Hinojosa won the race for governor against the Republican incumbent, Greg Abbott. At the state level, Democrats will take control of the Texas House for the first time in 24 years. Talarico and Hinojosa made data centers a central issue, discussing them constantly on the campaign trail.

德克萨斯州是美国增长最快的数据中心市场，也是大型科技公司进行最大规模人工智能建设的中心。但席卷“孤星之州”的蓝色浪潮可能会危及这一地位。民主党人詹姆斯·塔拉里科（James Talarico）击败肯·帕克斯顿（Ken Paxton）赢得了美国参议院席位。吉娜·伊诺霍萨（Gina Hinojosa）在州长竞选中击败了共和党现任州长格雷格·阿博特（Greg Abbott）。在州一级，民主党人将 24 年来首次控制德克萨斯州众议院。塔拉里科和伊诺霍萨将数据中心作为核心议题，并在竞选过程中不断讨论。

Even before the polls closed, insiders in the data center industry noticed that the times were changing. At the industry’s DCD conference in Ashburn, Virginia, on Tuesday, panelists lamented that Texas had been the easiest place to build for years—until September. That’s when Abbott, perhaps seeing the increasingly bipartisan distaste for these facilities, began changing course himself. Developers said the governor’s office had stopped responding to their emails. On September 21, Abbott directed a key state regulator to halt data center permits.

甚至在投票结束之前，数据中心行业的内部人士就注意到时代正在发生变化。周二在弗吉尼亚州阿什本举行的行业 DCD 会议上，小组成员感叹德克萨斯州多年来一直是建设最容易的地方，直到九月。那时，阿博特或许看到了两党对这些设施日益增长的反感，开始改变自己的方针。开发商表示，州长办公室已经停止回复他们的电子邮件。9 月 21 日，阿博特指示一名关键的州监管机构停止发放数据中心许可证。

Many panelists at the conference were expecting this to mean that existing projects might be slowed and new ones could be halted altogether. The governor-elect indeed seems eager to do that. Hinojosa supported tax breaks for data centers in 2023 as a way to boost construction jobs, but during her campaign she began pushing for a full-fledged moratorium. That would be a problem for the hyperscalers of Big Tech, which have ambitious plans for AI training facilities in the state.

会议上的许多小组成员预计，这意味着现有项目可能会放缓，而新项目可能会完全停止。当选州长确实似乎急于这样做。伊诺霍萨曾在 2023 年支持为数据中心提供税收减免，以此作为增加建筑就业岗位的一种方式，但在竞选期间，她开始推动全面暂停此类项目。这对大型科技公司的超大规模企业来说将是一个问题，因为它们在该州拥有雄心勃勃的人工智能训练设施计划。

The scale of projects already underway in Texas is massive. The Stargate Frontier data center in Shackelford County is projected to serve 1,820 megawatts—about as much as the nation’s largest data center, SpaceX’s Colossus 2 in Tennessee, and more than twice as much as the largest data center currently operating in Texas. Nexus Hubbard, also under construction and intended mostly to serve Anthropic, has a planned size of 6,400 megawatts and is the second-largest data center being built in the US, behind only Meta’s Hyperion project in Louisiana.

德克萨斯州已经在建的项目规模巨大。沙克尔福德县的 Stargate Frontier 数据中心预计将提供 1,820 兆瓦的电力，这大约相当于美国最大的数据中心——位于田纳西州的 SpaceX Colossus 2，且是目前德克萨斯州运营的最大数据中心的两倍多。同样在建且主要用于服务 Anthropic 的 Nexus Hubbard 计划规模为 6,400 兆瓦，是美国在建的第二大数据中心，仅次于 Meta 在路易斯安那州的 Hyperion 项目。

The potential for Democrats to order delays to these projects or moratoriums on new ones adds to growing anxiety that the AI buildout could stall. Banks and lenders are already getting pickier about the projects they back. And given the extent to which the data center buildout is underpinning growth in the economy right now, those forces combined could have ripple effects. Voters around the country, though, were unambiguous in the midterms, sending a similar message on everything from state ballot questions to national offices.

民主党人可能下令推迟这些项目或暂停新项目，这加剧了人们对人工智能建设可能停滞的担忧。银行和贷款机构对他们支持的项目已经变得更加挑剔。考虑到数据中心建设目前在多大程度上支撑着经济增长，这些力量结合起来可能会产生连锁反应。然而，全国各地的选民在中期选举中态度明确，从州投票问题到国家公职，他们传达了类似的信息。

Voters supported efforts to protect ratepayers from increases in their electricity bills caused by data centers, and they favored some larger bans on new data centers altogether. If we needed any more convincing that Big Tech has fumbled its effort to sell voters on the idea that AI-powered abundance will make health care better, goods cheaper, and scientific breakthroughs more common, this was it.

选民支持保护纳税人免受数据中心导致的电费上涨影响的努力，并且他们赞成对新建数据中心实施更大规模的禁令。如果我们还需要更多证据来证明大型科技公司在向选民兜售“人工智能驱动的富足将改善医疗保健、降低商品价格并使科学突破更加普遍”这一理念上已经失败，那么这就是证据。

A key question is whether the Texas counties with the largest data center presence were part of the reason these Democrats got elected, or if the anti-data-center vote came from elsewhere. It’s complicated: The counties where much of the data center buildout is happening are around Dallas. Dallas County and others closest to it predictably went blue, but nearby Ellis County, which leads in permitting requests for data centers, went for Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton.

一个关键问题是，数据中心分布最密集的德克萨斯州各县是否是这些民主党人当选的部分原因，还是说反数据中心的选票来自其他地方。情况很复杂：大部分数据中心建设所在的县都在达拉斯周边。达拉斯县及其周边县不出所料地投向了蓝色阵营，但数据中心许可申请领先的邻近埃利斯县却支持了格雷格·阿博特和肯·帕克斯顿。

Cameron County, near the state’s southern border, is a hot spot for data centers and voted blue in the midterms, which was a shift. But Mitchell County and Scurry County, where a bunch of projects in west Texas are located, went red. This is a big deal, because no single office in the state decides whether a project goes ahead or is halted. Decisions often reflect an interplay between city governments, county officials, and state offices.

靠近该州南部边境的卡梅伦县是数据中心的热点地区，并在中期选举中投向了蓝色阵营，这是一种转变。但位于德克萨斯州西部的许多项目所在的米切尔县和斯库里县则投向了红色阵营。这很重要，因为该州没有任何单一办公室能决定项目是继续还是停止。决策往往反映了市政府、县官员和州办公室之间的相互作用。

Local officials who have some say over data center development may resist sweeping restrictions from the state. And Democrats pushing for a moratorium might also face pushback from the construction unions that supported some of their campaigns. So while the blue wave spells a death knell for Texas data centers in theory, election winners may find that following through on their opposition once in office is much more complicated than campaigning on it.

对数据中心开发拥有一定话语权的当地官员可能会抵制来自州的全面限制。而推动暂停项目的民主党人也可能面临支持其部分竞选活动的建筑工会的阻力。因此，虽然蓝色浪潮在理论上为德克萨斯州的数据中心敲响了丧钟，但选举获胜者可能会发现，在任职后落实其反对立场要比在竞选时谈论它复杂得多。