Meta Executive Says Midterm Backlash Against Data Centers Will Make AI Buildout Harder
Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said Democratic midterm wins and public opposition to data centers, tied to broader negative sentiment about AI, will make building AI infrastructure harder. She described Meta's approach to winning local approval, including paying for its own electricity and directing tax surpluses to communities, and said Meta still sees demand to lease its compute even if its consumer AI agent Muse does not scale as hoped.
Skynet Chance (−0.02 pp): Growing public and political scrutiny of AI infrastructure adds democratic oversight of AI expansion, slightly increasing societal checks. It does not directly address alignment or control.
Skynet Date (no change): Political resistance to data center construction could slow compute scaling, modestly delaying the arrival of highly capable and potentially risky systems.
AGI Progress (−0.02 pp): Constraints on building gigawatt-scale data centers threaten the compute scaling that frontier AI progress relies on, a modest headwind to capability advancement.
AGI Date (no change): Increased regulatory review and local opposition to data centers could slow compute buildout, pushing AGI timelines somewhat later.
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