A political backlash against AI and data centers — now compounded by a crisis facing the technology's most influential champion — could help force a slowdown that industry leaders have struggled to achieve voluntarily.

Why it matters: Tapping the brakes on AI development — which frontier AI developers claim to want but have so far failed to do given the risk of offering an advantage to a competitor — could give society more time to prepare for economic upheaval and the risks of superintelligent systems.

A wave of Democratic victories and data center moratoriums is now joined by a potentially weakened Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who admitted to having a relationship with an alleged Chinese spy.

Huang, who has led the industry in barreling through past resistance to AI acceleration, may be less able to do so while under a microscope.

While both factors could stymie data center expansion in the U.S., it's far from clear that would slow AI's advance.

Between the lines: Huang has been a powerful counterweight…