The US elections were widely and rightly seen as a rejection of Donald Trump and his policies. But AI was on the ballot too. There were many local ballot measures on data centres, almost all of which rejected them with measures to pause or block them. Many Democrats won in part by campaigning against data centres. And AI companies spent over $100 million on the election, mostly backing losing, so unpopular, candidates:

https://influence.citationneeded.news/2026/results

The upshot of all this is probably an end to the data centre boom in the US. It was already slowing down, due to problems in particular localities up and down the country. Overnight it looks more like a national movement. I would not be surprised to see new laws from the Democrats in Congress, which Donald Trump might sign knowing how unpopular data centres are.

China of course doesn't have elections, or any organised opposition. There is nothing to stop China building whatever data centre capacity they need.…