Maya Barkin

tracking datacenters and the politics & regulation shaping AI @semianalysis_

[Maya Barkin @mayabarkin]

Glad our analysis was compelling enough to revise your forcast📈

[Brad Gerstner @altcap]

@SemiAnalysis_ @JeremieEO @robotknower @JordanNanos U guys do great work. Fun to chop it up w @dylan522p at our AGM this week. After listening to the @elonmusk call, your convo, & my Jensen pod last week - our forecast likely trending higher. 🧐📈

[Financial Times @FT]

According to security officials, pro-Russian and far-right social media accounts linked to previous disinformation campaigns have spread violent videos in an attempt to sow more chaos https://t.co/do9goC9A2l

[SemiAnalysis @SemiAnalysis_]

Is 50 GW in a single year too aggressive?

"Dear Brad called us out publicly and cut our forecast in half."

So Jeremie (@JeremieEO) and Reyk (@robotknower) came on with Jordan (@JordanNanos) to show their work. They go site by site from satellite and explain why haircutting the number double counts the delays already baked in. Plus moratoriums, 9-month modular builds, and why 2028 is the year to watch.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇩🇪 Nvidia's Jensen Huang CORNERED German Chancellor Merz on the old EU regulation playbook

"I've also heard you say that you want to find that balance between innovation and regulation.

There's nothing to regulate if the industry doesn't thrive."

Europe keeps reaching for the rulebook before the companies even get off the ground.

Writer: Lucas

[Maya Barkin @mayabarkin]

@altcap and others called our +43GW of global datacenter capacity (ex China) for 2027 too aggressive, so we went back through every site we track. We came out higher, at +50GW.

The satellite images speak for themselves.

[SemiAnalysis @SemiAnalysis_]

Datacenters 2027: The Year of Acceleration,
+50GW in a Single Year
60GW Under Construction,
SemiAnalysis Leading Indicators,
1.3T of Lease Contracts Signed YTD,
The Shortage Could Move to Chips
https://t.co/lTJ1Sbv5nl

[Maya Barkin @mayabarkin]

Datacenters have become a major US campaign issue and moratoriums are spreading fast, but the political noise far outweighs the megawatts at stake. Just ~2.3 GW of ~21.2 GW in affected areas (ex-Texas) is at real risk of delay, as @TheEconomist highlighted this week citing my research at @SemiAnalysis_. November could change that if anti-datacenter candidates win and the rules tighten, which is why we track these projects one by one.

[BBC News (World) @BBCWorld]

Brazil sees record fall in Amazon deforestation as key election looms https://t.co/yJ0jJhVa3s

[SemiAnalysis @SemiAnalysis_]

Moratoriums aren't killing the US datacenter buildout.

Our analyst @mayabarkin finds only ~2.3 GW of ~21 GW in moratorium areas (excluding the TCEQ pause in Texas) is likely to be delayed, as cited in The Economist.

For more, read her report in the SemiAnalysis newsletter👇️
https://t.co/N59qQFhDbJ
https://t.co/MeHyR8hznU

[Folha de S.Paulo @folha]

Mais de 100 organizações acusam big techs de interferir nas eleições brasileiras

https://t.co/lv3Yg3I14Q

[BRASILWIRE @BRASILWIRE]

US election interference:
Brazil’s Public Ministry investigates Meta over apparent manipulation of presidential race.

https://t.co/SaBdgPFX6j

[Maya Barkin @mayabarkin]

Happy to see my research on the impact of datacenter moratoriums making it into @TheEconomist.

Despite the headlines, the rapid spread of moratoriums across the US has had little effect on actual buildout. Roughly 21.2 GW of capacity sits in areas covered by local or state moratoriums (excluding Texas), yet only ~2.3 GW of that is likely to slip. The political momentum behind these fights is real, but for now the capacity at stake is small.

Full breakdown at @SemiAnalysis_.

[Archie Hall @ArchieHall]

A few reflections from travelling (w/ @ed_shackle, @sebwride++) through data-centre country in Michigan/Ohio in my latest for @TheEconomist.

1/ The issue really is moving votes to the Democrats. That's now visible in our polling, too (h/t @OwenWntr), but also in the scale of on-the-ground discontent. I'm quite a bit more bearish on the prospects for big new data-centre projects in blue states after the trip.

2/ I really didn't hear that much direct anti-AI sentiment. The mood much more was a cocktail of worries about local harms (water, electricity bills, house prices), plus a total distrust of businesses and politicians. Against that backdrop, assurances about the water usage of closed-loop cooling systems really don't cut through. And, though developers will doubtless get cannier at this, cash payoffs to communities can easily look like subterfuge and do little to help.

3/ Still, moratoriums are at this stage much more bark than bite (h/t @mayabarkin for the data there). Only about 2GW seems actually delayed. The bigger risk is deterring newer projects, but I'd still guess that affects the exact locations more than whether the build-out happens at all.

4/ The question I'm left with is what comes after data centres as the big AI political issue into next year. A few obvious candidates are: a big cyberattack, the sheer scale of AI-related PAC spending in the 2028 cycle, the early innings of job displacement.

5/ What the data-centre issue should tell us, I think, is that voters' hostility to new technologies that change their lives in unpleasant ways is vast—especially when those changes are less positive-sum than data centres. So, however mad you expect AI as a technology to make the next few years, scale that up accordingly to account for a much more scrambled politics.

Do take a look at my piece on this here: https://t.co/Ha9R8uYF7i
And at our Checks and Balances podcast, where I contributed a short diary featuring lots of conversations with voters https://t.co/XLwgNTWRLs

[Maya Barkin @mayabarkin]

Finally, a datacenter the neighbors can live with: rooftop solar, its own wind turbine, zero water draw, flower beds for the planning commission, and the whole thing fits on a folding table. 0 MW of IT load, but you can’t have everything.

[Muhammad Zuhair @mzuhair123]

Our Moratoriums piece led by the DC Queen @mayabarkin talks about how it's entirely inaccurate that the rise in political backlash would somehow compromise the AI infra buildout.

Our DCM Model forecasts +38 GW of Datacenter IT capacity delivered in the US in 2027, more than double that of 2026, and we believe that less than 10% is delayed due to local moratoriums and the New York’s executive order.

The main issue here is the fact that many analysis of moratoriums out there haven't went into the granular-level of details, and it requires a parcel-level, project-by-project analysis, which SemiAnalysis did effectively.

And, since the general DC buildout sentiment on the federal level is positive, we see little threat from moratoriums.

[Ray Wong @raywongy]

Deleted Muse after seeing this post on Threads about how it told some Facebook Marketplace sellers the guy’s address and they showed up at his door

Dangerous and creepy

This would have been 1000x worse if the person was a woman

[Tim Denning @Tim_Denning]

This article should have 100M views.

[SemiAnalysis @SemiAnalysis_]

ORACLE DELAY🚨: We already said it in our energy model on May 29 and on our twitter on Jul 17.

[SemiAnalysis @SemiAnalysis_]

The datacenter moratorium curve is rising. But where does the risk actually sit? (1/5)🧵

[Robin Brooks @robin_j_brooks]

What's happening in Germany is a political apocalypse. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, AfD racks up its second win. In Berlin, the successor party to the East German communists becomes the strongest party. Watch my live stream from earlier today on all this:
https://t.co/xmLKkq1jmb

[Maya Barkin @mayabarkin]

CDU losses in two key states yesterday put German Chancellor Merz on shakier ground and make growth reforms in Germany less likely to pass. The far-right party AfD topped the polls in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and anti-capitalist die Linke won in Berlin.

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where voters have delivered a historic blow to the political mainstream. Merz’s CDU has been shut out of a state parliament for the first time in the Federal Republic’s history: just 4.9% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the far-right AfD won 38.2%. In Berlin, The anti-capitalist Left topped the poll w/25.7%. As Germany’s electorate polarises, pressure on Chancellor Merz is mounting and so is the risk that much-needed growth reforms are watered down or blocked altogether.