The biggest obstacle to AI is actually American voters?

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AI Data Centers & US Voters

Data centers used to be an investment story, but now they've turned into an issue for the midterm elections. Interestingly, not only are Democrats opposed, but Republicans are also against them. The reason for such rare consensus between the two parties is simple: voters are strongly opposed.

According to CNBC, with less than three months until the US midterm elections, an increasing number of state candidates are taking data centers as their campaign topic. Why? Because while AI brings productivity, technological competitiveness, and corporate profits, these belong to companies or the nation. For local communities, the additional costs of power generation, transmission, water usage, and noise are the most immediate and sensitive pressures that residents notice.

This sentiment has even made its way into commercial advertising. Beverage brand Liquid Death, together with Garage Beer owned by Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce, released a 90-second satirical short film that joked about using urine instead of fresh water to cool data centers. Liquid Death's creative VP said the company tried to avoid political topics, but AI and data centers have become a topic bridging political and cultural camps. After all, taking advantage of hot topics and the urge for gossip is common human nature.

Not long ago, the Florida governor primaries were held. The Trump-endorsed Republican representative won easily and moved on to the November election. On one hand, this representative is heavily supported by AI political action committees like Leading the Future, and should logically speak for the AI camp. But on the other hand, he proposed the "Protecting Payers Act" in July, requesting data centers be separated from public systems and bear the costs of their expansion themselves.

So, just because you take someone’s money, doesn’t mean you have to solve their troubles immediately. But if you don’t sponsor me, I can wait—can you?

CNBC points out that for data centers, independent power generation, power transmission upgrades, low-water cooling, and community compensation all factor into construction and long-term operation costs. If there are project approval delays that result in data center construction falling short of expectations, asset returns take longer, and the market will factor in an additional discount.

Public attitudes are also putting pressure on politicians. Pew Research Center surveys show that half of US adults are more worried than excited about AI entering daily life. Another survey from July 2026 shows 54% of US adults are very concerned about electricity prices, and 49% are very worried about AI's role in the economy. Therefore, CNBC believes anxiety about AI, the cost of living, and data centers is starting to worry more voters.

Trump also admitted yesterday that data centers need to improve public relations, but stressed that local communities should welcome these projects due to their large scale in employment, investment, and taxes.

The good news is that tech companies are clearly aware of the issue. In January this year, Microsoft pledged to assume the cost of data center electricity, lower water usage, and replenish more water in the local area than it consumes, while also creating local jobs and enlarging the local tax base. OpenAI then also pledged that energy costs would be borne by the projects themselves, give priority to closed-loop or low-water cooling systems, and draw up tailored plans for each Stargate project for the local community.

But CNBC notes that the problem is that more and more voters are not accepting these customized solutions, and politicians have clearly sensed the opportunity and are subtly making changes.

Jason believes this reminds him of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s famous saying: "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose." Campaigns require inspiration for voters, but once in office, you must face budgets, laws, interest groups, and economic reality, and in the end, the decisions made are often far from campaign promises.

So will this election focus mainly on anti-AI or anti-data center themes? I don't know. But if it does, I believe the AI sector will likely be negatively affected, because data center construction will slow, revenues will slow, monetization slows, and investments may also be delayed due to administrative resistance. Everything slows, the timeline gets pushed back, and valuations will be heavily discounted.

Of course, compared to short-term pressures, I have more faith in Cuomo’s aphorism. After the midterm elections, politicians will inevitably return from the poetry of campaigning to the prose of governing, facing the realities of economic growth and AI competitiveness. If this resistance and impact do materialize, and the market sells off sharply as a result, perhaps that’s just the time to buy into the AI sector in a contrarian fashion. Because I believe AI and economic growth are now inextricably linked to the entire US economy.

Alright, next up are the Top 5 Tech News from Bloomberg:

Fifth: Alibaba’s quarterly capital expenditure nearly reached $10 billion, with net profits plummeting over 75% to 10.5 billion yuan, and free cash flow turning into a $6.6 billion net outflow. Management says AI is now the most certain growth engine, with investments to be recouped within three years.

Fourth: Super Micro’s independent investigation shows current executives were unaware of prior allegations about NVIDIA chip smuggling plans to China. The company has taken disciplinary actions against those involved, and after the news, the stock price initially rose before falling back.

Third: OpenAI launched a new feature enabling ChatGPT to read, search, and send iMessages on Mac—but requires user authorization and runs locally. Given Apple’s long-standing focus on privacy and the tense litigation situation between the two, this move may trigger friction.

Second: Anthropic expects its IPO valuation to match or surpass SpaceX’s record $75 billion, planning to file before the end of the month. Q2 revenues exceeded $11.5 billion, while last year’s net loss was about $4.2 billion.

First: Broadcom is negotiating with several banks for AI chip financing over $60 billion to help companies like Anthropic acquire computing power. Blackstone and Apollo are participating, following the prior $35 billion chip financing cooperation model.