Re: Opposition To AI Data Centres Is A Growing Trend

(I'm not reading nz.general, and my comments are not NZ-specific, so
followup-to set to comp.misc. YMMV, of course.)

On 2026-08-11, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

> Some of the commentary on proposals like the 🇳🇿 Greens’ idea of

Only when I saw the newsgroup list could I have a guess at what these
two glyphs were, describe-char does confirm it's "NZ". But I'd say this
is a prime example of where not to use such UCS glyphs.

> pausing the construction of new data centres makes it seem like that’s
> a completely loony idea, the trend is unstoppable, and if we don’t
> allow these to be built on our turf, they will simply go elsewhere and
> we will be left behind to stagnate in our little backwater.
>
> And of course, it must only be “the media” whipping up the opposition
> to the inevitable advance of technology and creating a storm in a
> teacup about it, there’s no way that normal rational people would be
> agin it.

The little I've read suggests that the trend is that data centres are
promised, slated to be built, topic of memoranda, and so on, but end up
not getting built.

Well, if that's the case, I'd expect the GenAI companies would actually
want more opposition, so that they could pin their failure on
that. Heck, they could even boost said opposition.

But maybe what I read was about outliers?

> Well, maybe not. This item
> <https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/ai-data-center-bans-surge-past-500-nationwide-as-local-us-politicians-begin-blocking-new-developments-growing-public-outrage-and-bipartisan-pushback-threaten-big-tech-expansion-plans>
> reports that, in the USA, over 500 new data centre developments have
> been blocked so far, and more such refusals keep coming all the time.
> The state of Texas -- one of the last places you would expect to pay
> attention to “woke” ideas -- has imposed a complete moratorium on new
> data centre proposals for now.

-- 
Nuno Silva