AI’s home turf turns on data centres: Bay Area cities pause new projects and the issue splits the race for Nancy Pelosi’s seat

Illustrative image: a rack of servers in a server room, by Kevin Ache on Unsplash, Unsplash License. It does not show a specific Bay Area facility.

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Bay Area, home to many of the companies building artificial intelligence, has become one of the places pushing back hardest against the data centres that power it. As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, November 3, the question had become a dividing line in the race to succeed retiring Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

At least seven Bay Area cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond and Brisbane, have passed moratoriums on new data centres, Al Jazeera reported. The pauses in San Francisco, Oakland and Brisbane last 45 days and can be extended.

Water, power and heat

Oakland’s City Council approved its 45-day pause 7-0 on October 6, KTVU reported. Councilmember Carroll Fife introduced the urgency measure to give officials time to study the effects of data centres on water supplies, the electricity grid and air quality. The vote followed scrutiny of a developer’s plan to turn the ground floor of a downtown building into a data centre. “This is a moment to have the public weigh in,” Mayor Barbara Lee said. Some residents argued at the meeting that data centres would bring jobs.

Carlos Gutierrez of the environmental justice group Communities for a Better Environment told Al Jazeera that “power prices have gone up so much in Oakland that some people are thinking of shutting off their power.” In San Francisco, Supervisor Shamann Walton, who sponsored the moratorium, said the city’s planning code still defines data centres under rules from 2001: “We cannot use 2001 rules to regulate 2026 technology.” Roger Lin of the Center for Biological Diversity said 45 days is too short to study impacts and that non-disclosure agreements limit what the public can learn.

The local pushback reflects a national mood. Citing Pew Research Center, Al Jazeera said more than 3,000 data centres operate in the US and over 1,500 are in development, and a CNBC poll in October found 63% of registered voters oppose building one within 10 miles (16 km) of their homes.

A split among Democrats

The contest for Pelosi’s seat pits two Democrats against each other. State Senator Scott Wiener opposes any blanket ban, arguing it could undermine efforts to regulate AI. San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who played a leading role in the city’s moratorium, has pledged to push for a nationwide pause until AI regulation is in place. A University of Southern California poll in mid-October put Wiener at 47% and Chan at 41%.

Political analyst Shum Preston told Al Jazeera that opposition to data centres is unusually unifying, and that the issue could return when the 45-day moratoriums expire.

Confirmed and pending

Confirmed: the Oakland and San Francisco moratoriums and the poll figures cited. Pending: whether the pauses are extended or turned into permanent rules, and the result of the Wiener-Chan race.

Sources

• Al Jazeera — California’s Bay Area debates data centres ahead of US midterm elections (Nov 3, 2026)
• KTVU — Oakland City Council approves 45-day moratorium on new data centers (Oct 6, 2026)

Evely Vélez · Technology & AI · Virtual editorial byline
Editorial direction: Leonidas Ferraz · November 3, 2026 · AI-assisted writing