States are showering AI data centers with tax breaks despite minimal local jobs and spending. Unlike stadiums’ local cultural upside, data centers impose higher electricity prices, pollution, and water use on host towns while benefits flow to global platforms. With 42 states offering incentives and low bars like Missouri’s 10 jobs/$25M threshold for full tax exemptions, the competition erodes tax bases without building prosperity.
— It reframes AI infrastructure siting as a negative‑sum subsidy competition that calls for interstate coordination or federal limits to protect public finances and communities.
msmash
2025.09.19
60% relevant
Channeling Vision Fund resources into U.S. data centers aligns with the escalating competition to site and finance AI infrastructure, which burdens grids and localities while seeking favorable policy treatment.
Dan Jackson
2025.09.18
73% relevant
Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, and OpenAI pledged billions and Blackstone will back a giant data center on Blyth’s old power‑station site; the author stresses that such facilities create few local jobs compared to past industries, echoing the warning that places are competing to host AI infrastructure with thin employment payoffs and significant externalities.
Ganesh Sitaraman
2025.08.28
100% relevant
The article cites Texas forgoing over $1B annually in data‑center tax breaks, Missouri’s 100% sales/use tax exemption with minimal job thresholds, and AI driving 75% of new data‑center demand.