Bernie Sanders is calling for a nationwide moratorium on new AI datacenters, framing it as a way to slow billionaire-driven AI expansion and let policy catch up.
He links large GPU datacenters directly to mass job losses, citing his own report that projects up to 100 million US jobs at risk across sectors like healthcare, transport, and education.
He also ties AI infrastructure growth to social harms and child development concerns, arguing that unchecked scale-out of compute is moving faster than democratic oversight.
Environmental and community groups are backing the pause from a different angle, highlighting rising power and water demand, higher electricity prices, and increased fossil-fuel pollution from new facilities.
Industry-backed Chamber of Progress rejects a moratorium and instead pushes for dramatically more, cheaper energy generation and transmission, especially solar, to keep AI growth on track.
The Trump administration is aligned with industry on deregulation and rapid datacenter buildout, putting Sanders in direct conflict with current federal AI infrastructure policy.
The piece is worth a full read for how it captures the growing political and social backlash to hyperscale AI builds and their energy footprints.
Source: Bernie Sanders proposes AI datacenter moratorium • The Register
