Datacenters feel the Bern as Senator Sanders pushes bit barn building pause
(2025/12/17)
- Reference: 1766006223
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/17/datacenter_ai_bernie_sanders/
- Source link:
US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is calling for a nationwide moratorium on datacenter construction, saying it would "give democracy a chance to catch up … and make sure that the benefits of technology work for all of us, not just the wealthiest people on Earth."
Sanders made the call for a datacenter delay in a [1]video published on Tuesday on YouTube and other social media platforms that focuses on many common concerns that have been raised about the explosive growth of AI and the need to build massive, energy-sucking datacenters to power it.
The Senator raised several points in his video, starting with the fact that the push to build datacenters and expand the reach of AI is driven by billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and the rest of the AI leadership cohort.
[2]
"Do you believe that these guys, these multi-billionaires, are staying up nights worrying about what AI and robotics will do to the working families of our country and the world?" Sanders posited. "Well, I don't."
[3]
[4]
Instead, Sanders believes AI leaders are on a path to devastate the US economy as they put countless individuals out of work, as he said he found in a [5]report into AI and employment released in October.
According to Sanders' report, AI has the potential to eliminate nearly 100 million US jobs in the next decade, hitting nurses, truck drivers, accountants, and teaching assistants particularly hard.
[6]
"Don't listen to me. Listen to the people who are developing those technologies," Sanders said, referring to remarks by [7]Musk , [8]Gates , and Anthropic CEO [9]Dario Amodei . "If AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income? Very few members of Congress are seriously thinking about this."
Sanders also expressed concern over reports that exposure to AI is harming children and damaging social development, which has been [10]well documented in [11]recent studies .
"This process is moving very quickly, and we need to slow it down," Sanders said, arguing a datacenter moratorium would do it.
[12]
It's not clear what form such a moratorium may take, when Sanders will introduce a proposal, or if Congress will have the appetite to consider such a measure. Sanders didn't say anything about those questions in the video or a [13]press release from earlier this month that echoed many of the points made in the video, and his office didn't respond to questions for this story.
The Trump administration has been [14]pushing hard to eliminate regulations standing in the way of AI advancement and, by the nature of what AI needs to expand, the construction of more datacenters.
The administration's push to expand AI and the datacenters that run it has butted hard into opposition from activist groups concerned not only about the risk to jobs and average Americans, but also the environmental impact of such projects.
[15]AI datacenter boom could end badly, Goldman Sachs warns
[16]From Georgia to Essex, AI datacenters are testing public goodwill
[17]Power crunch threatens to derail AI datacenter construction
[18]Trump's AI 'Genesis Mission' emerges from Land of Confusion
Many datacenter projects, campaign group Food & Water Watch said in an [19]open letter to Congress last week, are sharply increasing demand for energy and water, [20]driving up electricity prices and fossil-fuel pollution at a time when lawmakers are under pressure to curb emissions and protect strained power and water supplies.
The Chamber of Progress, a tech policy advocacy group backed by AI firms including Meta, Google, and OpenAI, told The Register that it doesn't think a datacenter moratorium is the right answer for the problem facing the US right now, naturally.
"The solution is vastly increasing the supply of cheap energy," K.J. Bagchi, VP of US policy and government relations at Chamber of Progress, told us in an email. "We need more everywhere. More generation, more transmission, and more options to drive costs down."
The Chamber added that it supports solar as the fastest, cheapest way to get electrons on the grid and criticized the Trump administration for slowing the progress of renewable energy.
We note the Chamber didn't touch Sanders' arguments about the societal impact of AI and the need to address the imbalance between the billionaire class pushing for rapid AI and datacenter expansion and the consumers and workers displaced by it, however. Given it's speaking for most of the industry's AI heavyweights, consider that non-answer a direct sidestep.
"We need all of our people involved in determining the future of AI and not just a handful of multi-billionaires," Sanders said. "AI and robotics are the most transformative technologies in the history of humanity and will have a profound impact on the lives of every man, woman, and child in our country." ®
Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f40SFNcTOXo
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUM2C9vdRsTR1ZG7VkWjpwAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-releases-report-on-big-tech-oligarchs-war-against-workers-warns-ai-could-eliminate-nearly-100-million-u-s-jobs/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUM2C9vdRsTR1ZG7VkWjpwAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-10-20-183701720.html
[8] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/26/bill-gates-on-ai-humans-wont-be-needed-for-most-things.html
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/29/anthropic_ceo_ai_job_threat/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/09/ai_interactions_us_students/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/18/is_ai_changing_our_brains/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUM2C9vdRsTR1ZG7VkWjpwAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.sanders.senate.gov/op-eds/ai-poses-unprecedented-threats-congress-must-act-now/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/12/trump_eo_state_ai/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/12/ai_datacenter_investments_goldman/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/16/datacenter_development_controversy/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/05/supply_chain_woes_and_power/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/11/doe_genesis_mission_funding/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/datacenter_pause_congress_help/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/datacenter_pause_congress_help/
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Sanders made the call for a datacenter delay in a [1]video published on Tuesday on YouTube and other social media platforms that focuses on many common concerns that have been raised about the explosive growth of AI and the need to build massive, energy-sucking datacenters to power it.
The Senator raised several points in his video, starting with the fact that the push to build datacenters and expand the reach of AI is driven by billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and the rest of the AI leadership cohort.
[2]
"Do you believe that these guys, these multi-billionaires, are staying up nights worrying about what AI and robotics will do to the working families of our country and the world?" Sanders posited. "Well, I don't."
[3]
[4]
Instead, Sanders believes AI leaders are on a path to devastate the US economy as they put countless individuals out of work, as he said he found in a [5]report into AI and employment released in October.
According to Sanders' report, AI has the potential to eliminate nearly 100 million US jobs in the next decade, hitting nurses, truck drivers, accountants, and teaching assistants particularly hard.
[6]
"Don't listen to me. Listen to the people who are developing those technologies," Sanders said, referring to remarks by [7]Musk , [8]Gates , and Anthropic CEO [9]Dario Amodei . "If AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income? Very few members of Congress are seriously thinking about this."
Sanders also expressed concern over reports that exposure to AI is harming children and damaging social development, which has been [10]well documented in [11]recent studies .
"This process is moving very quickly, and we need to slow it down," Sanders said, arguing a datacenter moratorium would do it.
[12]
It's not clear what form such a moratorium may take, when Sanders will introduce a proposal, or if Congress will have the appetite to consider such a measure. Sanders didn't say anything about those questions in the video or a [13]press release from earlier this month that echoed many of the points made in the video, and his office didn't respond to questions for this story.
The Trump administration has been [14]pushing hard to eliminate regulations standing in the way of AI advancement and, by the nature of what AI needs to expand, the construction of more datacenters.
The administration's push to expand AI and the datacenters that run it has butted hard into opposition from activist groups concerned not only about the risk to jobs and average Americans, but also the environmental impact of such projects.
[15]AI datacenter boom could end badly, Goldman Sachs warns
[16]From Georgia to Essex, AI datacenters are testing public goodwill
[17]Power crunch threatens to derail AI datacenter construction
[18]Trump's AI 'Genesis Mission' emerges from Land of Confusion
Many datacenter projects, campaign group Food & Water Watch said in an [19]open letter to Congress last week, are sharply increasing demand for energy and water, [20]driving up electricity prices and fossil-fuel pollution at a time when lawmakers are under pressure to curb emissions and protect strained power and water supplies.
The Chamber of Progress, a tech policy advocacy group backed by AI firms including Meta, Google, and OpenAI, told The Register that it doesn't think a datacenter moratorium is the right answer for the problem facing the US right now, naturally.
"The solution is vastly increasing the supply of cheap energy," K.J. Bagchi, VP of US policy and government relations at Chamber of Progress, told us in an email. "We need more everywhere. More generation, more transmission, and more options to drive costs down."
The Chamber added that it supports solar as the fastest, cheapest way to get electrons on the grid and criticized the Trump administration for slowing the progress of renewable energy.
We note the Chamber didn't touch Sanders' arguments about the societal impact of AI and the need to address the imbalance between the billionaire class pushing for rapid AI and datacenter expansion and the consumers and workers displaced by it, however. Given it's speaking for most of the industry's AI heavyweights, consider that non-answer a direct sidestep.
"We need all of our people involved in determining the future of AI and not just a handful of multi-billionaires," Sanders said. "AI and robotics are the most transformative technologies in the history of humanity and will have a profound impact on the lives of every man, woman, and child in our country." ®
Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f40SFNcTOXo
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUM2C9vdRsTR1ZG7VkWjpwAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-releases-report-on-big-tech-oligarchs-war-against-workers-warns-ai-could-eliminate-nearly-100-million-u-s-jobs/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUM2C9vdRsTR1ZG7VkWjpwAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-10-20-183701720.html
[8] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/26/bill-gates-on-ai-humans-wont-be-needed-for-most-things.html
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/29/anthropic_ceo_ai_job_threat/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/09/ai_interactions_us_students/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/18/is_ai_changing_our_brains/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUM2C9vdRsTR1ZG7VkWjpwAAAEc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.sanders.senate.gov/op-eds/ai-poses-unprecedented-threats-congress-must-act-now/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/12/trump_eo_state_ai/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/12/ai_datacenter_investments_goldman/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/16/datacenter_development_controversy/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/05/supply_chain_woes_and_power/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/11/doe_genesis_mission_funding/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/datacenter_pause_congress_help/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/09/datacenter_pause_congress_help/
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/