AI Infrastructure Coalition Responds to the Sanders-Ocasio-Cortez Data Center Moratorium Bill

WASHINGTON — Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez today introduced a bill to ban new data center construction nationwide until “AI safeguards” are in place, which according to Axios’ reporting would “take years.” This bill would inflict harm on American workers and the broader economy, and hand China a strategic gift.

“Every 911 call, every medical record, every paycheck processed — data centers make it possible. The average American relies on them more than 100 times a day,” said AI Infrastructure Coalition Co-Chairs former Senator Kyrsten Sinema and former Congressman Garret Graves. “This bill doesn’t hit pause on AI. It cuts the cord on the infrastructure that keeps modern American life running.”

This Bill Would Kill the Very Jobs It Claims to Protect

• Data centers now employ more than 603,000 Americans — nearly 1.5 times more than all 16 U.S. automakers combined, seven times more than our steelmakers, and 12 times more than coal.
• The sector contributes over $480 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Since 2017, data center employment has grown more than 50 percent — five times faster than total U.S. job growth — and wages in the sector have risen 144 percent during that same period.
• There are currently 2,788 data centers under construction or announced nationwide, a build-out projected to create 5.4 million temporary and permanent jobs — in a sector where demand is expected to quadruple over the next five years.

It Bets the Economy on an Indefinite Legislative Stalemate

• AI infrastructure was responsible for 92 percent of U.S. GDP growth in the first half of 2025, according to Harvard economist Jason Furman. Without it, annualized growth would have been just 0.1 percent. Private-sector data center construction spending grew nearly 70 percent from 2023 to 2024, far outpacing every other commercial category.
• Since 2019, $560 billion in AI-related venture investment has flowed into all 50 states across nearly 27,000 deals. Freezing this sector is not a policy pause — it is a forced economic contraction with no clear end date.

A U.S. Freeze Doesn’t Slow AI — It Hands the Lead to China

• The United States currently operates approximately 60 percent of the world’s data center capacity — a remarkable achievement for a country that represents just four percent of the world’s population.
• Over the next five years, the U.S., China, and others will compete over more than $5 trillion in global AI infrastructure investment, according to McKinsey. Whoever wins those investments will capture the majority of the $14 trillion in annual economic value AI could generate by 2030 — and will hold an uncontested advantage in global military and economic power. A moratorium is a voluntary step backward at the worst possible moment.
• A unilateral construction ban does not pause global AI development. It cedes the race. This year, Chinese companies will invest $70 billion to build new data centers, according to Goldman Sachs. In 2024, China added 429 gigawatts of net new power generation capacity — more than 15 times the amount added by the United States, according to RAND. Chinese cloud service providers are projected to increase capital expenditures by 65 percent in 2025 alone.

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