Data centers and AI safety are moving from specialist policy debates into campaign politics. More than 15 politicians running for office across the country have signed the AI Pact, a pledge that links concerns about data center development with demands for stronger rules around artificial intelligence.
The pact does not simply call for slowing construction. It tries to define a baseline for candidates who want to address voter anxiety about energy use, backroom deals, job disruption, and harms caused by AI models without rejecting every possible data center project outright.
A Pledge Built Around Data Centers and AI Safety
The AI Pact is a set of five promises around regulating data centers and AI itself. According to its website, the goal is to provide “a needed baseline to ensure a humanity-first future.”
The pledge grew out of the Political Integrity Project, an anti-money in politics group that already has a similar candidate pledge. Daniel Lobo-Lewis, one of the founders, says the AI Pact’s promises were developed through networking with AI safety groups and political organizations working on AI legislation.
The commitments include advocating for mandatory safety reviews for AI models, supporting policies that would create an AI dividend for workers, and ensuring that consumers and companies can sue over harms caused by models.
Lobo-Lewis says funding for the AI Pact comes from a progressive political action committee. He also says no AI safety groups or tech companies are directly funding the initiative.
Why Candidates Are Paying Attention
Concerns about data centers have grown during the midterm cycle. Candidates are hearing worries about environmental impacts, secrecy around construction, and the corporate power behind major projects.
Dan Osborn, an independent running for the US Senate in Nebraska against Republican incumbent Pete Ricketts, described how the issue can cross partisan lines. After a town hall, he says, a “hardcore MAGA” man approached him. Osborn says they initially had little common ground, until AI and data centers came up.
“Then I said, ‘Hey, what’s your take on AI and data centers?’” Osborn says. “Boy, right away, we were in lockstep, 100 percent agreement.”
Osborn is the only current signer who is not a Democrat. Lobo-Lewis says the pact would welcome Republican signers as well.
Some signers have made opposition to data centers and Big Tech central to their campaigns. The source names Representative Justin Pearson, a Tennessee Democrat who became nationally known while pushing back against pollution from SpaceX’s data centers, and Will Lawrence, a left candidate who won a competitive primary in Michigan in a district with significant data center opposition.
The Pact Avoids a Blanket Moratorium
The AI Pact does not demand an explicit moratorium on data centers. Instead, it calls for candidates to “support policies that would ban tax breaks, backroom deals, and excessive energy usage for data centers.”
That wording is deliberate, according to Lobo-Lewis. He describes it as a “floor” that candidates can sign, including those with strong labor ties. The source notes that several labor unions have recently reaffirmed support for data center construction.
That balance matters because data center projects can be presented as sources of jobs and infrastructure. Alexander McCoy, a progressive strategist working on AI issues, says candidates in swing seats are focused on affordability, creating jobs, and lowering costs. He argues that some do not want to rule out projects that might help with those goals, even as AI raises broader risks for workers.
“At the same time, AI is expected to be incredibly disruptive unless guardrails are put in place. So is it worth it to create some construction jobs now, at the cost of destroying the opportunities available to other workers in your district?”
Osborn, a Navy veteran and labor leader, also avoids a simple yes-or-no framing. He says data centers can provide “a lot of infrastructure and a lot of jobs,” but argues Congress needs to regulate them, especially as he campaigns in rural areas where farmers worry about losing land to development.
“We’ve got to get this right,” he says. “Calling a time out right now doesn’t seem like a horrible thing.”
A Broader Fight Over Guardrails
The source describes Osborn’s position as increasingly common across the political spectrum. Texas Republican Greg Abbott, who had previously supported data center development, recently took steps to show voters that he is regulating the sector. Abbott said last weekend that data centers have “dug their own grave” in his state and initiated a temporary moratorium on construction this month.
Other ideas in the AI Pact overlap with positions being discussed by leaders in both parties. The White House is developing a voluntary safety review for AI models, while Trump has met with AI executives about a worker dividend for AI profits. The source says that idea was reportedly pitched to him by OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
The Trump administration has also encouraged AI companies, governors, and utilities to join a voluntary pledge intended to protect ratepayers from electricity increases tied to data centers.
Lobo-Lewis argues that the AI Pact goes further than those steps. He says he cannot imagine the Trump administration would support mandatory safety reviews for models, or nationwide tax breaks for data center construction.
In Texas, Abbott’s opponent in the Texas gubernatorial race, state representative Gina Hinojosa, has signed the pact. She has criticized Abbott’s moratorium as insufficient to ensure “that the people will be protected.”
“AI can be a useful tool, but it has to be used responsibly, and right now we don't have the guardrails to make sure it is.”
How Data Center Politics Is Expanding
The pledge lands during a larger debate over whether voter worries about data centers are tied to concerns about AI. Trump has repeatedly supported data center construction, saying recently that “If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it.”
Other politicians are more directly connecting data center development to AI safety. In March, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, proposed a national moratorium on construction until Congress passed legislation “that safeguards the public from the dangers of artificial intelligence.”
The source says a small, but growing, number of politicians have followed that approach. Earlier this week, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, running as a Republican for Senate in Texas, released a data center plan that included making data centers legally liable for chatbots that “undermine children’s safety.”
Still, the political link is not settled. Some polling cited in the source suggests environmental worries about data centers outrank AI concerns among the public, prompting questions about how closely data center opposition is connected to broader anxiety about AI.
For candidates signing the AI Pact, the bet is that the two issues are already connected enough to campaign on together. Their argument is straightforward: the physical infrastructure of AI, the economic effects of AI, and the legal rules for AI should be debated as one public policy problem, not as separate technical questions.