Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez propose banning new data center construction in the US

Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced paired bills in the U.S. Congress that would establish a complete moratorium on the construction of new data centers in the United States.

The ban would remain in effect until lawmakers adopt comprehensive federal AI legislation. The initiative represents one of the most radical political steps to constrain the growth of AI infrastructure in the history of the American Congress. Both politicians—among the most prominent critics of corporate power concentration in Washington—explained their initiative by arguing that the pace of data center construction has outpaced the state's ability to understand the consequences of artificial intelligence.

In their view, until Congress has established basic rules regarding algorithm safety, personal data protection, corporate accountability to society, and the impact of automation on the labor market, increasing computing power amounts to building a city without a master plan.

The technological context underlying the bill is well understood. Modern language models and generative services require enormous computational resources: training a single large model requires thousands of GPUs working for weeks. For inference—servicing user requests in real time—requires constantly operating infrastructure.

According to various analyst estimates, global data center electricity consumption could double by the middle of this decade compared to 2022. In the United States, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta have announced combined investments in the hundreds of billions of dollars for new facilities. Microsoft alone has planned to invest approximately 80 billion dollars in AI infrastructure during its 2025 fiscal year—a figure comparable to the GDP of a small country.

The bill's authors insist: it is precisely this pace of expansion that creates additional pressure on already overburdened power grids, water resources, and local ecosystems. Building powerful data centers requires hundreds of megawatts of electricity and millions of liters of water for cooling. In several U.

S. states, conflicts have already been documented between local residents and companies competing for sites for new server halls. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez want to pause this process—until the country determines what exactly is being built and why.

Industry associations and technology lobbyists have already expressed strong disagreement with the initiative. The critics' main argument is straightforward: a ban on construction in the United States will not stop AI development on a global scale. Corporations will simply redirect investments to Canada, the European Union, Singapore, or Japan, where the regulatory climate will prove more favorable.

This is the classic scenario in which strict national regulation leads to capital and expertise flight—without any real benefits for safety or society. Industry associations have called the bill populist, unviable, and counterproductive for American technological leadership. The bill's chances of passage in the current composition of Congress are low.

Most lawmakers, including moderate Democrats, are skeptical of such sweeping restrictions on business. However, the political significance of the initiative extends beyond its legislative prospects. It clearly demonstrates that the regulatory vacuum surrounding AI in the United States has long become a political problem.

A country that claims the role of global AI leader still does not have a basic federal law defining the rules for the development and application of AI systems. Years after the appearance of ChatGPT, the question of accountability, transparency, and safety remains open at the federal level.

The initiative of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez is a signal of shifting political agenda. It is no longer discussed only what algorithms should be. Now at the center of the dispute is physical infrastructure: who is building, where is it being built, how does it affect ecology and local communities, who pays for electricity and bears responsibility for consequences. The AI race has ultimately transformed into infrastructure politics.