Meta warns that election backlash against data centers could make AI expansion harder

Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said Democratic wins in the midterm elections could make it harder for companies to build data centers, and she said the industry has not done enough to explain the benefits of those investments. Speaking at the WSJ Tech conference on Wednesday, she said backlash against data centers was on the ballot this election season and is tied to how people feel about AI overall. Meta believes it can improve negative consumer sentiment if it shows value in both local data centers and the technology itself.

Backlash and public sentiment

Powell McCormick said the visible manifestation of AI is a data center, and people can say they do not want one in their community. She said the underlying issue is how people feel about AI in general. Meta believes the stakes include who builds technology that cures cancer and gives access to education. Powell McCormick said Mark Zuckerberg is 'long human' and is betting on humans more than machines, and she said the future is for everyone, with people not left behind and technology democratized in a fair and transparent way.

Meta's data center experience

Meta has been building data centers for 20 years because its social networking products require compute power. Today the company has data centers in 23 states, and five of them, including one in Texas, are planned as projects of one gigawatt or more. Meta is worried it could lose some investments after politicians ran on anti-data-center platforms during the midterms. Powell McCormick said building data centers is becoming harder, but it is becoming clear what models work and states want models that work.

Local benefits and monetization

Communities only want data centers when they benefit in some way, Powell McCormick said. Successful projects include Meta paying for its own electricity, directing tax surpluses to teachers and first responders, keeping the labor force local, and getting bipartisan support. Going forward, projects may face more review and be weighed against whether constituents want them. Meta has pinned hopes on AI investments, including consumer AI agent Muse scaling beyond its 10 million users today to serve billions. Even if that does not happen, Meta says compute will remain valuable, and it receives calls every day to lease compute it has built, showing a path to monetization.

Sources: TechCrunch