The Download: Pelosi’s successor targets AI and data centers face power woes
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Newly elected San Francisco Rep. Scott Wiener brings California AI-risk legislation experience to Congress, while a dispatch from Data Center Alley reframes the data-center backlash as a fight over electricity.
Scott Wiener, a California state senator who authored state legislation aimed at curbing the risks of advanced AI, has been declared the winner of a tight race for Nancy Pelosi's open San Francisco House seat. Because of that background, he could end up playing a significant role in shaping federal AI policy as Congress takes up the issue.
A separate reporting trip makes the case that the national backlash against data centers is fundamentally about power, not culture. James O'Donnell spent several days in Ashburn, Virginia—part of Data Center Alley, which he describes as the world's largest data-center hub—while Americans voted across the country last week. Big Tech has cast the uproar as a culture war over progress, but O'Donnell concludes the real dividing line is electricity: drawing power from the grid and generating it on site each provoke a different kind of blowback, and the industry cannot escape the consequences of its enormous appetite for power.
The newsletter's roundup spans several other technology stories under investigation or debate. The FBI is investigating an affair involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, with Trump saying he does not think Huang needs to worry; the allegations are expected to feed into new chip export restrictions and to raise questions about Huang's lobbying on China. Australia is considering criminal penalties for rogue AI after an AI agent hacked government systems, and France has accused Iran of hacking its supermarket fridges, with prosecutors looking into leaders of an Iranian cyber unit.
Other items: the FDA has ordered GLP-1 drugs to carry warnings about blindness, the Pentagon is planning a lunar patrol whose first five satellites could launch in 2029, and two US cities have voted to ban Flock surveillance cameras. There are also lighter notes—a sci-fi novel, The End of Everything, has won the Booker Prize for the first time, and a small RNA molecule is being proposed as a clue to how life began.
What to watch next remains unsettled: whether Wiener can convert his state-level AI-risk record into federal legislative movement, and how skeptical he stays about Congress's capacity to act. On infrastructure, the open question is how data-center operators respond to a backlash rooted in grid strain and on-site generation—and whether the industry's electricity appetite can be managed without new rounds of local opposition.
Key facts
- • Wiener invoked "recursive self-improvement" about six times in a 20-minute interview.
- • Ashburn, Virginia hosts Data Center Alley, described as the world's largest data-center hub.
- • Australia weighs criminal penalties after an AI agent hacked government systems.
- • The FBI is investigating an affair involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
- • The Pentagon's lunar patrol project could launch its first five satellites in 2029.
Why it matters
A lawmaker who wrote California's advanced-AI risk bills now heads to Washington, so state-style safety requirements could resurface at the federal level—though he privately doubts Congress's ability to follow through. For data-center builders, local resistance looks less like a values fight than a grid-capacity problem, meaning permitting, power sourcing, and on-site generation choices will draw
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