Bernie Sanders and AOC propose a ban on data center construction

The explosion of new data center projects in the US has led to a growing backlash against the infrastructure that powers AI. Two influential politicians are now proposing a ban on new data centers with peak powers of more than 20 megawatts.

Introducing Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York accompanying legislation today in their respective chambers, that would halt the projects until Congress passes comprehensive AI regulation.

Sanders’ office points to comments from several tech moguls who have discussed their fears about AI and called for stricter regulations or development pauses. These include Elon Musk (who has said, “AI is much more dangerous than nuclear weapons. So why don’t we have regulatory oversight?”), Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton.

One March Pew Research survey found that a majority of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI, with only 10% of respondents saying their excitement outweighs their concern. However, AI companies’ massive political spending and fear of losing an AI arms race with China could make such legislation difficult to implement.

This bill can be seen as an opening bid for what AI regulation should look like. The two lawmakers want the U.S. government to review and certify models before they are released, provide protection against AI-induced job losses, limit the environmental impact of data infrastructure and require union labor in its construction. They are also trying to ban the export of advanced chips to countries without similar regulations – which is currently most of them.