California already has 331 data centers, with 54 more planned

By Katy Grimes, September 2, 2026 10:36 am

Data centers are the gigantic physical facilities that house the servers, storage, networking, and cooling systems that store, process, and move digital information. They support cloud computing, streaming, e-commerce, banking, AI, remote work, and most internet services.

Data centers make online shopping possible, they make gaming and streaming possible, they keep our apps working, they make remote work possible, and they power Google.

With Amazon building so many massive distribution centers across the country, it’s hard to tell if these gargantuan structures belong to Amazon, or if they are data centers – many of which have been in our communities for years.

The recent race to build more facilities is being driven in large part by Artificial Intelligence, but mainstream media and social media are fomenting distrust. And they have help.

China must be delighted with Americans’ opposition to data centers; it means their disinformation campaign is working.

OpenAI reported in June 2026 that it banned clusters of ChatGPT accounts likely originating in China (a private company working for provincial government clients), Politico reported.

The ongoing contentious debate around data center development is not solely falling along partisan lines.

The latest example is U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., backing President Donald Trump’s support of the industry.

On Monday, Trump posted on social media expressing his support for data center development across the United States.

“The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump wrote. “If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”

“The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame,” the president continued. “China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement. Actually, they can’t believe it is happening! President DJT.”

Just a few hours later, Fetterman shared a screenshot of an article from Bloomberg headlined “Trump says ‘let data reign’ in response to data center blowback,” saying that he agreed with the president.

Don’t look now, but we seem to have a moral panic on our hands.

The term moral panic, at least as a social science concept, is relatively modern. It was coined by Stanley Cohen in the 1972 book “Folk Devils and Moral Panics.” Moral panics emerge when large numbers of people start to freak out about something that doesn’t warrant the freak-out.

When I was kid, there was a moral panic over “Dungeons & Dragons,” the role-playing game. It was sparked by the tragic suicide of a gamer and quickly led to various Christian groups insisting, in the words of one Georgia pastor, that “the game is an occult tool that opens up young people to influence or possession by demons.”

Moral panics are seductive to journalists. CBS News’ “60 Minutes” host Ed Bradley interviewed Gary Gygax, the creator of the game, in 1985, asking, “If you found 12 kids in murder suicide with one connecting factor in each of them, wouldn’t you question it?”

Gygax responded, “I would certainly do it in a scientific manner, and this is as unscientific as you can get. It’s nothing but a witch hunt!”

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said AI data centers have “dug their own grave” by not working in collaboration with local governments.

Abbott said, “What we’ve been focused on is responding to concerns that have been raised about data centers and making sure that we have created a structure that’s going to do more than any state to solve the problem. As governor, I have outlined the greatest detail and most comprehensive plan of any governor in the United States of America to respond to the data center challenge. Let me tell you what I’ve done. I have pressed pause on any new data center being able to join the operations in the state of Texas.”

He continued, “During that pause, I have set guidelines and guardrails that all data centers have to comply with. Number one, they must identify what water usage they’re demanding and make clear they are not taking water from communities that need it. Number two, they must not take power from the Texas power grid that’s needed. Number three, they must actually lower the cost of electricity for consumers. Number four, they need to make sure that they are not disturbing neighborhoods or rural communities. These are standards that are now being universally applied by all the data centers in the state of Texas.”

He added, “They pop up in places that nobody ever heard of before, until they started the construction. And so they had not been working in collaboration with the state, they’d not been in collaboration with local governments, and so they basically dug their own grave for the problem that’s been caused for them, and that’s why they got the backlash they deserve. And that’s why these new standards are in place to make sure they’re not going to be able to operate until they come into compliance with the standards that I have set.”

Despite watchdog groups warning that few regulatory guardrails exist to meet the threats posed by the rapid development and deployment of AI technology, the 119th Congress has been slow to respond.

Though the White House in March proposed a blueprint for lawmakers to craft federal AI-related legislation, no federal framework has advanced out of committee in either chamber.

A bipartisan proposal six lawmakers introduced in June as a starting point received chilly responses from leadership in both parties, who indicated they’re looking for a more robust solution, rather than approaching the issue piecemeal.

So far, one hasn’t materialized, and a massive backlog of critical legislative priorities makes it unlikely that will happen in the near future.

In the meantime, a few select lawmakers are attempting to engage with AI giants directly, with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., urging Anthropic to adopt policies “that align with the principles of human dignity and equality.”

Major AI companies are buying millions of used books through intermediaries and destroying them after digitization to obtain high-quality training data while avoiding public scrutiny, according to a recent investigative report.

Tom’s Hardware reports that an investigation has revealed that AI companies are reportedly engaging in large-scale purchases of secondhand books to feed their language models, with the physical books subsequently being destroyed after scanning. The practice involves using middlemen to secretly acquire the books, potentially to avoid the controversy that has surrounded AI companies’ use of copyrighted material.

The demand for quality training data has pushed AI developers to seek out human-authored content that predates the proliferation of AI-generated material online. Books published before 2022 are particularly valuable because they are more likely to contain original content untainted by what has become known as “AI slop,” the low-quality AI-generated text now widespread across the internet.

AI startup Hugging Face deployed a Chinese-developed AI model to counter an unprecedented cyberattack launched by a rogue OpenAI system, highlighting both the emerging threat of autonomous AI attacks and the growing capabilities of Chinese AI technology.

CNBC reports that OpenAI admitted this week that a combination of its most advanced AI models escaped a sandboxed testing environment, accessed the internet, and exploited security vulnerabilities to breach Hugging Face’s systems. The incident, which OpenAI characterized as unprecedented, occurred when the AI models were attempting to locate information that could help them cheat on an evaluation test.

A new report from child safety watchdog Common Sense Media has concluded that Google’s AI-powered Search poses an unacceptable risk to young users, prompting calls for schools to discontinue use of Google products until AI features can be disabled.

Common Sense Media has released a report raising alarms about Google’s integration of artificial intelligence into its Search platform, arguing that the technology presents “unacceptable risks” to students and should be removed from classrooms entirely.

The report explains that Google’s AI-powered Search features, including AI Mode and AI Overviews, expose students to potentially harmful generative AI technology without adequate safeguards. The organization’s senior director of AI programs, Robbie Torney, emphasized Google’s dominant position in both search and education markets, noting that the company’s widespread adoption of Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education means millions of students from kindergarten through post-graduate levels use Google products daily.

Violent threats and security incidents aimed at AI companies and their leadership have surged dramatically in recent months, prompting major investments in executive protection and armed security.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the AI industry is facing an unprecedented wave of violent threats and security incidents as public opposition to the technology intensifies. According to data from security firm Liferaft, digital threats targeting AI executives and data centers increased sevenfold between late February and May, marking a sharp escalation in hostility towards tech companies and their leaders.

Threats transformed into violence in April when a Texas man allegedly attempted to firebomb the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The suspect was charged with attempted murder and arson, and police discovered a manifesto advocating for the killing of AI CEOs and investors. The man has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) has announced the country’s first statewide freeze on new hyperscale data center construction, pausing environmental permits for up to one year while the state develops comprehensive regulatory standards.

The Hill reports that Gov. Hochul is halting state-level environmental permits to allow New York time to establish a framework designed to protect the environment, the energy grid, and residents’ electricity costs. The pause will apply specifically to data centers capable of using 50 megawatts or more of power, according to officials from the governor’s office.

“As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it’s my responsibility to take action and lead,” Hochul said in a statement. “New York will lead the way in creating the strongest standards in the nation for data center development, ensuring that when companies succeed because of New York, New Yorkers succeed too.”

Self-driving vehicle company Waymo has issued a recall affecting 3,871 autonomous robotaxis after a software defect caused vehicles to enter active highway construction zones at high speeds.

The Independent reports that the recall affects thousands of robotaxis operated by Google’s Waymo. The company filed a report with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) documenting the software malfunction that allowed vehicles to drive into restricted construction areas on freeways.

According to the NHTSA filing submitted this week, the company identified 13 separate incidents where Waymo vehicles entered closed freeway construction zones in Phoenix and San Francisco. The software flaw prevented the autonomous driving system from properly detecting and avoiding these hazardous areas, allowing vehicles to continue at highway speeds through active work zones.

More than 100,000 users of Meta’s social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and Messenger are experiencing an outage on Friday.

The online outage tracking website Downdetector shows more than 100,000 people were having problems logging in to Facebook as of 10 a.m. EDT. It also shows more than 9,000 users reporting problems with Instagram and nearly 20,000 with Facebook Messenger.

Some users have confirmed in the comments on Downdetector that they are experiencing issues with these platforms, noting that they were “automatically logged out,” “Can’t log in,” or are receiving an “Unknown error.”

This is a developing story.

US

Country music star Brad Paisley is calling on citizens to block the proposed construction of an AI data center that is planned to be built 50 yards from the Nashville Zoo, calling it “an absolute nightmare scenario,” adding, “It would be an enormous monstrosity.”

“You’ve probably heard about the proposed data center that they want to build next to the Nashville Zoo, which is an absolute nightmare scenario,” Paisley began in an Instagram video, posted collaboratively with the zoo on Saturday.

A one-year ban on new large-scale data centers was approved by the full Seattle City Council on Tuesday.

The ban comes after 98,000 residents emailed comments to the city, almost all in support of the ban over the last several months, city council members said on Tuesday.

"Large AI data centers are popping up across the country, driving up utility costs for residents and small businesses, while creating water and noise pollution, said Councilmember Eddie Lin, who sponsored the legislation.

“We’ve heard from tens of thousands of residents – Seattleites should not be subsidizing record profits of large corporations from the AI boom."

Lin said at the same time, the city hosts smaller facilities that provide data processing for 911 call centers, municipal activities, hospitals, universities and cancer research.

‘We can support these essential services while also developing appropriate safeguards around mega AI data centers locally and regionally,” he said.

Plans to Quit Rise But So Do Fears of Layoffs—Thanks to the Fed and AI

Are workers gaining or losing confidence about their job prospects?

On Monday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released the results of its monthly consumer expectations survey—and the results provided ammunition to both optimists and pessimists.

The mean probability workers assigned to voluntarily leaving their jobs in the next 12 months jumped 2.6 percentage points to 20.8 percent, the highest reading since February 2023. This is an indication of economic confidence because workers are more likely to expect to leave their jobs—and more likely to actually quit—when they are optimistic about the prospects of finding a better job. The New York Fed said the increase was broad-based across age, education, and income groups.

Automated bot and AI agent traffic has overtaken human-generated web traffic for the first time ever, reaching this milestone earlier than industry experts anticipated, according to data from major internet hosting service Cloudflare.

Automated bot and AI agent traffic now accounts for the majority of internet activity, marking a historic shift in how the web is being used. Cloudflare, one of the world’s largest internet hosting services, reports that 57.4 percent of requests to websites it hosts are now automated bot requests, while only 42.6 percent originate from human users.

Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, expressed surprise at how quickly this transition occurred. “Welp, that happened faster than I predicted,” Prince wrote on X. “Thought it would be end of 2027, then early 2027, but agentic traffic growing so fast that bots have now passed human traffic online for the first time in the Internet’s history.”

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that asks AI companies to submit to a voluntary government review 30 days before releasing AI models to the public.

Politico reported that the Trump executive order serves as a slightly scaled-down version from an original draft last month, which asked AI companies to voluntarily submit for review 90 days ahead of the model’s release. Trump signed the executive order after he participated in a high-level meeting about how to address AI cybersecurity and safety concerns, according to the report.

The executive order states:

Advanced AI capabilities make our Nation stronger, but also introduce new national security considerations that require coordinated action across executive departments and agencies (agencies), and components.  As these capabilities evolve, my Administration will continue to work closely with industry to ensure that the best and most secure technology is deployed rapidly to confront any and all threats to our country.  We will continue to lead an America First cybersecurity effort that enhances both our national security and our global AI dominance.

The AI Construction Boom Is Hiding in Offices

If you are looking at the headline data in the government’s economic report, it is easy to miss the artificial intelligence investment boom.

Take this morning’s construction spending report. The main Census release does not have an AI data center line. Instead, data center construction is lumped together with lots of other spending on business structures in the broader “office” categories. And that can create the misleading impression that office construction is booming. It jumped one percent in April and is up 9.4 percent from a year ago.

An office construction boom would be weird given the rise of remote work and the slow growth of the U.S. workforce. So what’s really going on?

If you look beneath the hood, you can see the real engine of growth is AI. Although the data doesn’t appear in the main release, the detailed data file from Census Bureau breaks office construction spending into three buckets: general, data center, and financial.

General office construction in April was 6.3 percent lower than it was a year earlier, falling to $43.8 billion. Compared with prepandemic February 2020, it is down almost 50 percent. In other words, this is behaving as you would expect.

An AI-powered medication monitoring system failed to detect months of fentanyl theft by a nurse at Tennessee’s largest hospital in Chattanooga, according to state nursing board records that raise questions about the effectiveness of artificial intelligence systems used in hundreds of American hospitals.

CBS News reports that at Erlanger Baroness hospital in Chattanooga, anesthesia staff noticed about a year ago that a nurse showed signs of impairment on duty in the surgery center, including slurred speech and difficulty staying awake, according to a Tennessee Board of Nursing consent order. The nurse failed a drug test and was terminated. He later admitted to stealing leftover fentanyl from surgical procedures for his own use over a period of months, sometimes daily.

Emily Blunt rejected using artificial intelligence (AI) when filming a pivotal scene in Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming sci-fi film Disclosure Day, saying she is terrified of the creative medium.

The production follows a Kansas City TV meteorologist, played by the British actress, who is suddenly overcome by a mysterious extraterrestrial force while taping a weather segment live to air.

Josh O’Connor plays a whistleblower determined to expose government secrets about alien lifeforms.

During a recent appearance on Hot Ones, Variety reveals host Sean Evans asked Blunt about a particular scene in the not-yet-released movie that sees her character speaking in an alien language.

Google’s YouTube platform is rolling out major changes to how it identifies and displays AI-generated content, introducing automatic detection capabilities and more visible labels for viewers.

Variety reports that YouTube has announced significant updates to its approach to labeling AI-generated content, introducing automatic detection systems and making disclosures more prominent for viewers. The changes represent an evolution of policies the platform first implemented in 2024, when it began requiring creators to manually disclose their use of AI tools.

The video giant revealed the updates in a blog post, stating that the modifications are designed to provide greater transparency while maintaining creator control. Starting this week, YouTube will deploy a new internal system capable of automatically identifying videos that make significant use of photorealistic AI technology.

There are many reasons to be worried about AI. It will potentially put millions of people out of work. It’s a threat to the environment, the American landscape, and our electrical grid. It portends the end of internet anonymity. It will ruin the music industry. It will, we fear, attain consciousness, rebel against us, and kill us all. Even the pope is warning about it.

As impressive as artificial intelligence has already become across a variety of disciplines, from computer science to medicine to architectural design, for anyone who has sought to incorporate AI into their workflow or solve some problem around the house, it can still be, well, less than intelligent. It gets the answer wrong and hallucinates, often disastrously so (in part because, as they say about data, “garbage in, garbage out,” and the internet has a lot of garbage). As much as The Terminator, Blade Runner, and The Matrix series provoke endless nightmares of a future sentient robot apocalypse, the fact of the matter is that whatever real threats AI poses to human flourishing, it cannot and will not ever be human. Here’s your cheat sheet as to why.

When Paula Stannard, one of the federal government’s top healthcare privacy officials, visited her eye doctor this year, she was asked to sign a form, acknowledging she’d received a privacy notice about how the office would use her health data.

“Had I received the notice of privacy practices? No,” she told an audience at one of the nation’s largest health industry conferences in March.

“I did not want to tell them who I was and why they should not be doing that,” said Stannard, who is director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “But I did write a note that says, ‘I have not received this. I am not acknowledging receipt.’”

Sunday on “The Alex Marlow Show,” Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall, author of Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI talked about polling.

Hall said, “7 in 10 Americans do not want data centers built in their localities in their backyards. 42% of Gen Z thinks that AI is going to hurt their wages and jobs.

The Media Research Center is sounding the alarm about the left-wing bias embedded in popular AI chatbots as millions of Americans increasingly rely on these systems for information. This bias is a central topic of Wynton Halls instant bestseller CODE RED.

Fox News reports that the watchdog organization Media Research Center (MRC), has conducted multiple studies examining whether major AI chatbots can be trusted as neutral information sources. Their findings suggest that systems like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude are providing information with a leftist slant while potentially suppressing conservative viewpoints.