Microsoft Scraps Plans to Expand Texas Data Center Project – Reports
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) — US tech giant Microsoft has abandoned plans to expand a data center project with UK’s Nscale in Texas, following the victory of a Democratic candidate in the state’s gubernatorial election, media reported on Thursday, citing sources. Last autumn, Nscale announced an agreement with Microsoft to lease approximately 240 megawatts of capacity in Texas’s Ward County, with an option for further expansion that would have brought the total capacity at Nscale’s facility to roughly 500 megawatts. According to the report, Microsoft has decided not to exercise this option. This decision could reportedly cost Nscale billions of dollars in potential future revenue if the company fails to secure new clients for its data center. Concerns over the construction of AI data centers across the United States were among the factors that led voters to reject incumbent Republican candidates in the midterm elections. Newly elected Democratic governors have called for an immediate moratorium on the construction of data centers, the newspaper reported. The United States held midterm congressional elections on November 3, as a result of which the Democrats gained control of both chambers. In Texas, a Democrat was elected governor for the first time in 30 years, while in Kansas, a Democrat was elected to Congress for the first time in 94 years.
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