In May, state Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, area lost her bid for reelection to the legislature, the first such incumbent loss since 2018. Multiple reasons contributed to Sollman’s loss to union-backed challenger Myrna Muñoz, but a pivotal and new factor was data centers.
Those massive buildings, consuming vast amounts of electricity and water and producing compute, serving as the physical location of much of the internet cloud and especially the locus of fast-growing artificial intelligence.
The Sollman result also turned on factors including labor union support. But the broad emotional push seemed to come in reaction to the growth of
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