Policy

US voters in the 2026 midterm elections voted against AI data centers in at least 38 of more than 40 ballot measures across 13 states, passing outright bans in six cities and power limits in 12. Pro-data center politicians also lost offices nationwide, including Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who was defeated by Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa after his support for AI data centers became a central campaign issue.

UK AI Minister Kanishka Narayan acknowledged that the government's frequently cited claim that AI would add £400 billion to the economy came from a 2023 report commissioned by Google. The government's own central projection estimates the economic boost by 2030 at £120 billion, less than a third of the industry-funded figure.

An editorial from 404 Media reports that American voters in the November 2026 midterm elections broadly rejected candidates backed by the Trump administration and Silicon Valley executives, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in political spending from AI and crypto donors. Voters also approved 39 out of 40 local ballot measures to restrict AI data center projects and elected officials campaigning on data center moratoriums in states like Ohio and New York.

A New York Times report states that Google plans to turn off its search service for schools that choose to reject AI features. The post links to the news article and a Google blog post regarding education products, though no additional details are provided in the text.

Following President Trump's executive order directing federal agencies to rebrand artificial intelligence as "Super Intelligence" (SI), adoption across government agencies, news outlets, and tech companies has been uneven. While several federal websites and executives like Elon Musk and Marc Benioff have begun implementing the terminology, many government officials, media organizations, and major tech leaders continue to use "AI."

China's Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology issued Announcement No. 48, proposing new export controls on 23 AI technologies—including frontier model weights, advanced agent architectures, and AI cyber capabilities—while enforcing an immediate interim registration requirement. While overseas API access and existing open-source models remain exempt, local overseas deployments and future open-sourcing of models exceeding specific compute, parameter, or top-10 ranking thresholds will require government reporting or licensing.

OpenAI announced a pilot "Grid Protectors Program" at an upcoming data center in Georgia, promising to free up to 1,000 megawatts of power for local communities during emergencies or extreme weather. The initiative comes amid growing local opposition across the US to the massive energy demands of new data center projects.

SemiAnalysis examines how a growing, bipartisan political backlash against data centers in the upcoming US midterm elections threatens the 2028 infrastructure buildout. Gubernatorial candidates across major markets like Texas and Oregon are campaigning on construction moratoriums, ending tax breaks, and forcing developers to cover grid upgrade costs and report water usage.

At a Brooklyn midterm election event hosted by Newsreel, panels and attendees repeatedly focused on the growing public backlash against AI and data center construction. A recent report from Data Center Watch found that nearly $200 billion in data center projects were delayed or blocked in the first half of 2026 due to community and political opposition.

OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic have agreed to adopt a unified standard allowing publishers to opt out of AI web scraping across multiple companies simultaneously. Proposed through the Internet Engineering Task Force by an Anthropic technical lead, the shared policy token will operate within a website's existing robots.txt file.

A weekly briefing examines the role of AI and data centers in the US midterm elections, noting that while few voters rank AI as their top issue, campaigns and super PACs are heavily featuring it in battleground ads. The newsletter also rounds up major AI policy and industry developments, including Anthropic's IPO filing, a DOJ antitrust review of Nvidia's Hugging Face acquisition, and £600 million in new UK AI security funding.

US Senators Ron Wyden and Edward Markey sent a letter to Meta demanding answers about privacy violations and harassment linked to its Ray-Ban smart glasses. The lawmakers specifically questioned Meta's practice of retaining intimate, nonconsensual footage captured by the glasses' visual AI features and exposing it to human contractors for AI training.

Meta updated its commercial terms of use to permit scraping and using content from connected business websites to develop its products, sparking backlash from artists and small businesses. Users in the UK and EU can opt out of having their data used for Meta AI via privacy settings due to GDPR and the AI Act, an option unavailable to US users.

State and local emergency managers are increasingly using generative AI tools and specialized startups like EM1 to draft public disaster alerts, often unofficially. While language models can help understaffed agencies quickly write clearer warnings than stressed humans, experts warn that inaccurate outputs and public skepticism of AI could undermine trust during crises.

Retiring head of England's civil justice system, Judge Geoffrey Vos, argues in an interview that AI should eventually be used to adjudicate simpler civil disputes like personal injury and low-value negligence claims. He also notes that county court filings are rising by 10 percent annually as citizens increasingly use chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to draft legal claims.

Platformer examines the limited role of artificial intelligence in the midterm elections, noting that voters are currently focused on other issues. The newsletter also discusses OpenAI's policy to combat deepfakes and mentions an Anthropic S-1 filing.

A proposal in Delaware aims to create a new corporate entity called an Artificial Intelligence Company, which would allow businesses to be operated by AI agents. US Representative James Comer has requested documents regarding the plan, warning that it could allow human owners and investors to evade legal responsibility for harmful AI actions.