Meta President Warns Data Centers Will Be Harder to Build After Midterm Elections

Meta president Dina Powell McCormick said at the WSJ Tech conference that Democratic gains in the U.S. midterm elections will make it much harder for companies to build data centers. She also argued the industry has not done enough to explain what such investments deliver.

She said opposition to data centers was a major ballot issue this election season and linked it to wider public unease about AI. Because data centers are the visible face of the technology, she said, residents can simply say they do not want one nearby. She expects officials to weigh more carefully whether constituents actually want them.

Meta has run data centers for about 20 years and operates them in 23 states. Five planned projects, including one in Texas, are at 1 gigawatt or larger.

McCormick said successful projects share traits: Meta pays for its own electricity, directs tax surpluses to teachers and first responders, keeps the workforce local and has bipartisan backing.

On returns, Meta is counting on its consumer AI agent Muse, which has about 10 million users and which it hopes to scale to billions. If that falls short, she said, the compute could still be leased out, and the company gets calls daily asking to rent it.

Source: TechCrunch

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