Meta warns that election backlash against data centers could make AI expansion harder

Meta president Dina Powell McCormick said that the Democratic wins in the midterm elections are going to make it a lot harder for companies to build data centers, adding that the industry has “not done as good a job as we needed to explain the benefits of these investments.” Speaking at the WSJ Tech conference on Wednesday, the Meta exec pointed out that the backlash against data centers — which was very much on the ballot during this election season — was also tied to people’s feelings about AI technology overall.

Meta 总裁 Dina Powell McCormick 表示，中期选举中民主党的胜利将使企业建设数据中心变得更加困难，并补充说该行业“在解释这些投资的好处方面做得还不够好”。周三在《华尔街日报》科技大会上发言时，这位 Meta 高管指出，针对数据中心的抵制（这在本次选举季中是一个非常重要的议题）也与人们对人工智能技术的整体感受有关。

“The visible sort of manifestation of AI is a data center, and it’s something that people can say, ‘I don’t want this in my community,’” she explained. “I think there’s an underlying bigger issue, which is how people feel about AI in general.” Meta believes it could turn around the negative consumer sentiment around AI if it’s able to demonstrate the value, not only of the data centers coming to local communities, but also in the technology itself.

“人工智能的一种可见表现形式就是数据中心，人们会说‘我不希望它出现在我的社区里’，”她解释道。“我认为这背后有一个更大的问题，那就是人们对人工智能的普遍感受。”Meta 认为，如果它能够证明数据中心不仅能为当地社区带来价值，而且技术本身也具有价值，那么它就有可能扭转消费者对人工智能的负面情绪。

“The stakes of who builds the technology that cures cancer, that gives access to education, that is also a very fundamental difference … Mark [Zuckerberg, Meta CEO] is very ‘long human,’ and he’s betting on humans more than machines,” Powell McCormick explained. “And that’s what we mean when we say the future is for everyone. That people should not be left behind. But the way to ensure that is that this technology is democratized, that people have access to it in a very fair and transparent way,” she said.

“谁来构建能够治愈癌症、提供教育机会的技术，这其中的利害关系非常重大，也是一个非常根本的区别……马克（扎克伯格，Meta 首席执行官）非常‘看好人类’，他押注人类胜过机器，”Powell McCormick 解释说。“这就是我们所说的‘未来属于每个人’的含义。人们不应该被抛在后面。但确保这一点的途径是让这项技术民主化，让人们以非常公平和透明的方式使用它，”她说。

The exec also touted Meta’s experience in building data centers, saying that the company has been doing so for 20 years, as it takes a lot of compute power to offer the products it does in the social networking space. Today, the company has data centers in 23 states, she said, and five of them, including one in Texas, are planned as projects of 1 gigawatt or more. But Meta is now worried that it could lose some of its investments after politicians ran on anti-data-center platforms during the midterms.

这位高管还吹捧了 Meta 在建设数据中心方面的经验，称该公司已经深耕此领域 20 年，因为提供社交网络产品需要大量的计算能力。她说，如今该公司在 23 个州拥有数据中心，其中 5 个（包括德克萨斯州的一个）被规划为 1 吉瓦或以上的项目。但 Meta 现在担心，在中期选举期间政客们以反数据中心为竞选纲领后，它可能会损失部分投资。

“I think it’s going to be harder,” Powell McCormick said, describing what the future of building data centers looks like. “It has been hard, I should say, but I also think that it’s becoming clear what models work, and the states want those models that work.” Specifically, communities only want data centers when it benefits them in some way, she explained, laying out the approach that Meta today uses to close its data center deals in local communities.

“我认为这会变得更难，”Powell McCormick 在描述未来建设数据中心的前景时说。“我应该说，这一直都很困难，但我也认为哪些模式行之有效正变得清晰，而各州需要那些行之有效的模式。”她解释说，具体而言，只有当数据中心以某种方式使社区受益时，社区才会欢迎它们，并阐述了 Meta 目前在当地社区达成数据中心交易时所采用的方法。

Successful projects see Meta paying for its own electricity, directing any tax surpluses as a result of the data centers toward teachers and first responders, keeping the labor force local, and getting bipartisan support for the project, among other things. Going forward, she expects data center projects to come under more review and be weighed against whether the constituents actually want them.

成功的项目包括 Meta 自行支付电费、将数据中心产生的任何税收盈余用于教师和急救人员、保持劳动力本地化，以及为项目争取两党支持等。展望未来，她预计数据中心项目将受到更多审查，并会权衡选民是否真的需要它们。

Meta has pinned its hopes on its AI investments, particularly its consumer AI agent Muse scaling far beyond the 10 million users it has today, to become a business that one day serves billions. But even if that’s not the case, it believes that its investments in data centers will not be for nothing, as the compute itself will be valuable. “We’re getting calls every day to lease that compute [we’ve built], and so one way or another, we’re seeing a path to monetization,” Powell McCormick said.

Meta 将希望寄托在人工智能投资上，特别是其消费者人工智能代理 Muse，希望它能远远超过目前 1000 万的用户规模，成为未来服务数十亿人的业务。但即使情况并非如此，它也相信其在数据中心上的投资不会白费，因为计算能力本身就很有价值。“我们每天都会接到租赁（我们构建的）计算能力的电话，所以无论如何，我们都看到了货币化的途径，”Powell McCormick 说。