AI stocks slide as Texas governor result raises data center risks (cnbc.com)

37 pointsby 16594470913 hours ago41 comments

Shitty-kitty an hour ago

To a public already apprehensive about what A.I means for their jobs and their future, the shady and irresponsible way the industry went about the Datacenter build-out convinced them that the industry is not to be trusted. Can't say I blame them. If they don't get their act together, datacenters will be the least of their worries. With what happened today, many Republicans will be thinking twice about standing in the way of choking regulation.

lakeviewterrace an hour ago

Yeah don't hold your breath.

The heavy anti-datacenter campaigning was primarily aimed at scaring votes out of old people and other low-information voters, and was largely successful. With that mission accomplished it's back to business as usual.

I personally observed old ladies gossiping at the polls. A lot of them don't even know what data centers are, just that they are bad and will steal their electricity and make their arthritis worse.

All politicians regardless of party are bought and paid for.

Literally every instance I've seen where the angry townspeople fought against a data center, the town council unanimously ruled against them without a vote, like the kangaroo court in The Godfather Part 2.

piokoch an hour ago

I think you are oversimplifying the situation. The problem were not data centers per se, but Mr. Paxton, who, except being a rather horrible person (his own party tried to get rid of him) was taking money from lobbyists and then was trying to push their agenda without taking into account any concerns.

lakeviewterrace an hour ago

I should clarify: I'm not talking about Texas; this trope was used across the country this election cycle, even at the most local of local elections.

Dog-catcher candidates were taking disingenuous anti-datacenter stances if they thought it could get them votes.

zero_shift an hour ago

Then those who believe specific datacenters need to be built should provide better arguments.

If anything the pro-build people should be for regulation so that citizens can know a local buildout means no power outages, water shortages etc. - preventing communities from rejecting DCs for purely defensive reasons.

It's clear the AI companies have not managed the message here, they have fumbled the politics. This is a deserved loss on their part.

lakeviewterrace 15 minutes ago

You're expecting a nuanced debate from an electorate that has had this distilled into a purely Boolean issue: bad or good

ZeroGravitas an hour ago

Why do AI stocks rely on corrupt assholes being in charge?

Seems like a moment for "are we the baddies?" style reflection.

piker 40 minutes ago

That's a motivated take. Obviously the party and candidates which promote less regulation are preferable to the stock market. It doesn't require accusations of corruption, and it doesn't mean their opponents are wrong, either.

thrance 37 minutes ago

Republicans are not the party of "less regulation". That's another of these myths they use like "states rights" or "fiscal responsibility".

piker 19 minutes ago

Ok members of one party are proposing rent controls, city-owned groceries, abolition of AI advancement, expansion of the EPA, etc. and the other is revoking long-standing SEC, EPA and other agency regulations. This claim just doesn't hold up.

(I'm a swing voter if that helps.)

applebottomjean 12 minutes ago

Which party created the EPA?

piker 5 minutes ago

I don't know the history. Nixon? Seems like it was motivated in the 1950s. I don't think Richard Nixon was on the ballot this year, but maybe I just missed it.

alweirilawerj 26 minutes ago

You have a very shallow understanding of economics. "Less regulation" is great if you can't think beyond next quarter. "Good regulation" is what keeps the economy healthy long-term.

piker 19 minutes ago

Perhaps, but that's not really relevant as I am not the stock market.

deaux 16 minutes ago

Abortion bans, book bans, trans bans, voter ID laws and so forth are regulation. It's "regulation for thee but not for me".

piker 9 minutes ago

That's a fair observation, and perhaps requires qualifying my initial point with "non-social" regulation. The market doesn't care about those.

liotier 35 minutes ago

The USA's AI companies have embraced regulatory failure as a shortcut to accelerate physical deployments.

Using onsite fossil fuel electricity generation as primary power source, instead of waiting for the grid to catch up (preferably a decarbonized grid), depends on corrupt assholes being in charge.

throwaw12 34 minutes ago

> Why do AI stocks rely on corrupt assholes being in charge?

Isn't this true about whole US politics, where lobby groups fund elections, so that politician later returns a favor to them?

To make their (lobby groups) job easier, this election theatre has only 2 actors to pick from, imagine how expensive would be if you always had 8-9 real contenders and media didn't control the narrative

lakeviewterrace 24 minutes ago

Imagine unironically believing this indicates a windfall of ethics to come.

This is where third-worlders have absolutely no illusions. They know how the system works.

master-lincoln 14 minutes ago

Isn't the whole stock market mostly selfish assholes investing into other greedy assholes?

schnitzelstoat 23 minutes ago

Loudoun County, Virginia is about to get even richer.

small_model 24 minutes ago

Let's hope China are benevolent world superpower, looks like they will win the AI race now with Dems grinding the US build out to a halt.

12_throw_away 22 minutes ago

what race? what are the prizes?

greggoB 11 minutes ago

> Let's hope China are benevolent world superpower

Don't hold your breath: their human rights record is already in the dumps (see Uyghurs and Tibetans), and they seem to have no problem having all kinda of territorial ambitions (see Taiwan, South China Sea, India and Bhutan, etc).

Add in the authoritarianism and corruption, and I'm pretty sure you have a recipe for a country you absolutely DO NOT want in a position of global power.

233mhz 9 minutes ago

China living rent free in every single American mind is the funniest shit ever. We should study this, most successful propaganda campaign ever.

technolols an hour ago

With all due respect, your sector deserves the shellacking that's coming after the past two years of intolerable behavior.

cwillu an hour ago

Not my sector, friend.

aabhay an hour ago

Don’t let one bad sector ruin the whole disk

teroshan an hour ago

Definitely not, especially with the rising cost of storage

https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/internal-hard-drive/

colinb 44 minutes ago

oh oh oh. My time to shine (? shine seems wrong. Cringe? I don't know). Allow me to present https://www.digiater.nl/openvms/doc/alpha-v8.3/ovms_archived..., The VMS Bad Block Utility. In my first real job I had to port this from 32 bit VAX to 64 bit Alpha, which meant recompiling it, then testing it with:

- a SCSI floppy drive (! amazeballs all by itself) - a box of fresh disks - an unfolded paperclip

Method:

- take fresh disk. - pull back spring-loaded protective cover - make scratch on disk with paperclip - insert disk in still experimental Alpha hardware - check for evidence that the bad block utility had run, remapped some (physically damaged) blocks, and gone back to sleep

Spivak an hour ago

It will be interesting to see if and how people who campaigned on broad "anti-datacenter" platforms actually make it happen. I imagine it's easy to take a stance but getting the real political capital together, especially as a governor who will almost surely need their legislature, when it means turning down jobs—few as the ongoing ones might be—and real economic development. I hope it works because it potentially sets a precedent and maybe a legal framework for a state to actually say "we don't want this kind of business here" for things that aren't just data centers.

broodbucket an hour ago

I'm not sure there being fewer jobs for a handful of datacentre engineers is going to be much of a problem for the voter base. Unless profits made from these datacentres are going to be directly helping the public somehow (if they even can make profits), there's fundamentally no reason for anyone to want DCs in their area. People might want to do things that require DCs, but that's different from wanting one near you. What arguments can you even make to ordinary people as to why they should want datacentres? It's the easiest populist slam dunk ever.

Shitty-kitty an hour ago

Legislation or not, good luck getting those permits.

adaml_623 33 minutes ago

Tell me more about "real economic development"

Is it growing wealth for the country? Will everyone's wealth grow equally or will it mostly concentrate in people who are already wealthy.

Maybe real economic development is something different to you??

yread 25 minutes ago

Oh no all the datacenters will have to be built in Wyoming now

selimthegrim 22 minutes ago

They'll have to get in line behind Louisiana

sensanaty 24 minutes ago

The 7 data center jobs created will surely be a great loss to the community