THE CRUNCH
A year-long US Senate investigation into AI data centres has concluded that some developers have misled communities about the costs and benefits of their projects, Time reported. Developers routinely highlight the construction jobs a build brings, but many declined to share how many permanent positions remain once a site is operational. The few companies that did provide figures pointed to roughly one permanent job per megawatt of capacity, meaning a 100-megawatt facility, which uses about as much electricity as 100,000 homes, would employ around 100 people.
The report also examined the tax incentives state and local governments hand out. Property-tax breaks draw the criticism during planning, but sales-tax exemptions on computer equipment are reportedly the bigger giveaway, since data centres constantly maintain, replace and upgrade their hardware. The investigation estimated that 39% of a 1GW data centre's spending goes on GPUs, so states forgo substantial revenue when promised economic benefits fail to materialise.
The surveyed companies, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Digital Realty and Equinix, were also found reluctant to cover the wider infrastructure their facilities require. They said they would pay direct costs but argued they should not fund larger investments such as new power plants and transmission lines, even though those were primarily driven by their own power demands.
"Congress must hold Big Tech accountable so these companies pay their fair share," Senator Elizabeth Warren told Time. Senator Chris Van Hollen added that the report showed "working Americans and local communities are footing the bill for Big Tech's massive expansion of data centers." The findings come days after the Senate rejected the Ratepayer Protection Act, a bipartisan bill tied to the developers' ratepayer protection pledge, which fell three votes short on 30 September after senators called the pledge "toothless."