The tech giants are running out of sight as the backlash against the data center erupts in the home of the artificial intelligence industry's ground game collapsing. In a single midterm cycle, American voters delivered a harsh verdict on data centers: 38 of 41 ballot measures in 10 states supported restrictions, with several municipalities voting for outright bans. The numbers are brutal for the industry. A Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans oppose AI data centers in their local areas, including nearly half who are strongly opposed. The reasons are concrete: Home electric bills have soared, with some areas reporting increases of up to 267% after a surge in demand for data centers. One large facility can use up to 5 million gallons of water a day, compared to a city of 50,000. Residents also cite noise, pollution and a lack of public information. Now that Democrats have won majorities in both chambers, all of these projects risk serious political pressure, investigations by CEOs of the big AI companies and canceling tax breaks that existed under Trump. The tech industry quickly responded with various projects to protect its initiative. "Data centers in space are looking pretty attractive right now," Elon Musk posted on X as the midterm results came in. His words were quickly picked up by industry representatives. Musk's words didn't come out of nowhere. Various tech companies have long been building projects to put data centers in space, Hoti reports: StarCloud, a startup that put the first Nvidia H100 GPU into orbit last November, has raised $450 million to build orbital data centers. The company aims for a constellation of 88,000 satellites providing 20 gigawatts of computing. Cisco joined as an investor, betting on the network layer connecting the floating servers Google launched a satellite it says contains "data center-grade TPU" SpaceX says it aims to deploy "thousands of AI satellites starting in late 2027."

The tech giants are running out of sight as the backlash against the data center erupts in the home of the artificial intelligence industry's ground game collapsing. In a single midterm cycle, American voters delivered a harsh verdict on data centers: 38 of 41 ballot measures in 10 states supported restrictions, with several municipalities voting for outright bans. The numbers are brutal for the industry. A Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans oppose AI data centers in their local areas, including nearly half who are strongly opposed. The reasons are concrete: Home electric bills have soared, with some areas reporting increases of up to 267% after a surge in demand for data centers. One large facility can use up to 5 million gallons of water a day, compared to a city of 50,000. Residents also cite noise, pollution and a lack of public information. Now that Democrats have won majorities in both chambers, all of these projects risk serious political pressure, investigations by CEOs of the big AI companies and canceling tax breaks that existed under Trump. The tech industry quickly responded with various projects to protect its initiative. "Data centers in space are looking pretty attractive right now," Elon Musk posted on X as the midterm results came in. His words were quickly picked up by industry representatives. Musk's words didn't come out of nowhere. Various tech companies have long been building projects to put data centers in space, Hoti reports: StarCloud, a startup that put the first Nvidia H100 GPU into orbit last November, has raised $450 million to build orbital data centers. The company aims for a constellation of 88,000 satellites providing 20 gigawatts of computing. Cisco joined as an investor, betting on the network layer connecting the floating servers Google launched a satellite it says contains "data center-grade TPU" SpaceX says it aims to deploy "thousands of AI satellites starting in late 2027."