Voters have put a helpful chill on the US data centre boom

{"text":[[{"start":3.64,"text":"Donald Trump had asked voters to pretend he was on the ballot in Tuesday’s US elections. He may regret saying that, after the opposition Democrats emerged with control of both legislative houses. But the president wasn’t the only topic on which voters indirectly made their views plain. In one sense, the midterms were a vote on the AI boom, or at least, the building frenzy it has inspired."}],[{"start":26.28,"text":"The top five states for data centre building are all now governed by Democrats with a hawkish bent when it comes to new construction of server-filled sheds. That political arrangement could affect 45 per cent of planned data centre expansion, Goldman Sachs reckons. Curbs on new building, already in place in New York state, are likely to proliferate. Out of 47 local votes on data centres counted by Redbud Consulting, at least 38 came out in favour of restrictions."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":54.24,"text":"So imagine, for a second, that the powers that be press pause on new data centre construction. Who wins and loses? Clearly, it’s good for those who have lots of capacity already. Anthropic is on the hook for nearly $900bn of cumulative “compute” spending, it revealed in an IPO filing this week. That seems like a risk, but if the market rate of server-space rockets, whatever compute Anthropic has managed to secure will soon look more like an appreciating asset."}],[{"start":82.52,"text":"Sand in the AI gears — even assuming that is all it is — is less welcome for companies whose equity value depends on the continued and rapid build-out of high-tech infrastructure. That includes so-called neoclouds such as CoreWeave, and more speculative builders like SB Energy and Nscale, both of which hope to go public in the US. The latter has already faced delays to data centres in the UK and Norway."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":107,"text":"Moratoria are unlikely to last too long. True, AI itself is becoming a polarising issue — a recent survey by HundredX shows inclination to keep using the technology diverging sharply between left- and right-leaning respondents. But it ought to bring real economic benefits too. Moreover, stopping construction in its tracks could send a chill through the broader economy. The construction of data centres has been booming compared with other kinds of building activity."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":132.6,"text":"For investors in AI companies, there is a silver lining to what might amount to helpful breathing room. Planned spending on AI infrastructure has reached fantastical levels; financing it and securing a return on that investment is now the biggest risk to the US stock market, since tech makes up 40 per cent of the S&P 500. Delays may frustrate, but they also make it less likely that trillions of dollars are invested in equipment at risk of becoming obsolete or depreciating faster than its financiers expected."}],[{"start":164.48,"text":"On top of that, in financial terms, money spent tomorrow is less expensive than money spent today. Consider some simple maths: $1tn spent next year is like spending $870bn today, using a 15 per cent discount rate. Push that out three more years and it falls to $570bn. Hotheaded tech chiefs will see delays as an affront. Investors could view them as an unexpected midterms dividend."}],[{"start":194.92,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1793847040_6941.mp3"}