Mashable Selects Creator Playbook Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more In My Bag Say More Trending Now Back to School Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net All Series How many states have banned data center construction? Matt Binder joined Mashable's tech vertical in 2018, where he covers social media, tech policy, cybersecurity, online scams, cryptocurrency, AI, creator news, weird tech, and other related tech beats. By now, you've likely heard about the push to stop new data centers from being built in the United States. Data centers aren't very popular right now, and a /Sienna survey just found that 61 percent of Americans oppose new construction. It certainly doesn't help that AI companies are overtly talking about doomsday-like scenarios and widespread AI-driven job loss .

There is an eerie low hum that emanates from data centres, where tens of thousands of chips make trillions of computations a second to help drive the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. These chips power the text, images and video generated by the queries made by the world of the advanced AI models. Their computations, which are in effect the switching on and off of microscopic silicon transistors that make up a chip, are actually silent. But, as with all computers, almost every watt of the significant electricity powering this process leaves as heat, and the sound you can hear is the slow whir of thousands of fans required to prevent the heat from frying the racks of servers. Depending on the size of the site, you may also hear the thrum of transformers in substations channelling electricity.

AI data centres are booming in Australia - but at what cost? The sheer size and noise of data centres are what people tend to notice first. Some say they sound like a jet plane about to take off, others complain of a high-pitched whine. When Lucy* puts her child to bed, she hears a constant humming. I'll hear it and think, 'What is that?

Donald Trump backs data centers to win the AI race with China, but Republicans on the 2026 ballot are calling for moratoriums over electricity costs and water resource concerns.

The datacenter fight could permanently transform US politics. Which party will seize advantage? Bryce Gustafson has been knocking on doors in Indiana for more than a decade. The lead organizer with Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), a consumer and environmental organization, he usually encounters a mix of reactions when he's out canvassing; whatever issue he's talking about, there's always at least a few people on the other side. But at a recent festival in the rural town of Monrovia, Indiana, he was struck by an unusual spirit of unity.

AI infrastructure demand is fueling a boom in construction jobs, with data centers requiring skilled trades like electrical work, concrete construction and plumbing.

More than 15 politicians from across the country have signed on to the AI Pact, vowing to regulate data centers and AI. "We've got to get this right," says Senate candidate Dan Osborn of Nebraska. Dan Osborn was finishing up his fourth town hall last Sunday, he says, when a "hardcore MAGA" guy approached him. Osborn, who is running for the US Senate in Nebraska as an independent against Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts, said that he and the man didn't have much common ground--at first. "Then I said, 'Hey, what's your take on AI and data centers?'"

Meta went on trial last week for allegedly designing platforms that are addictive for children. Meta went on trial last week for allegedly designing platforms that are addictive for children. I'm Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian, writing to you from a sunny park in New York City, which was supposed to endure rain all weekend but in fact delivered the best weather of the year. Why Meta's big American backlash happened in court A blockbuster case against Meta went to trial a week ago in Oakland, California, just north of the US tech company's headquarters in Silicon Valley . California and 28 other US states are suing the £1tn ($1.36tn) company for allegedly designing products that are addictive for children, and hiding that information from the public.

Archeologists are confronting an "unfathomable" loss as the US border wall is set to cut across ranches that are home to unique historical sites in Texas, many of which haven't been fully studied. Outrage has exploded over border infrastructure that recently began tearing up pristine desert landscapes in Big Bend National Park. But there's a quieter battle taking place on private lands in Texas, where the US border wall is set to cut across some of North America's richest archaeological sites, digging up ancient indigenous artifacts and fracturing millennia-old rock art in its path. The US Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection awarded billions of dollars in contracts this year toward the construction of a wall and other barriers in West Texas along a remote 500-plus-mile (800-plus-kilometer) riverfront expanse of the US-Mexico border that includes Big Bend National Park and other idyllic parklands. Bipartisan backlash against border wall construction in the national park was swift, ultimately prompting DHS to scuttle plans for a 30-foot steel bollard wall, instead replacing it with miles of riverside vehicle barriers and 200-plus miles of road construction.

A federal judge in Arizona cleared the path for border wall construction after a Native American tribe argued it constituted trespassing on tribal land along the U.S.-Mexico border.