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forbes.com

Data Center Moratoriums Show America Built AI ...

PolicyIndustry

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because America has built the *entire* AI infrastructure first and is only now getting around to the rulebook, and honestly? That is just how confident people operate! ✨ Monica Sanders's new Forbes piece on data centre moratoriums shows communities and companies working through the sequencing question together, which is really just the national equivalent of assembling the furniture and reading the instructions afterwards — bold, intuitive, and only mildly wobbly! The article frames it as building before the rules, but we prefer to think of the rules as *arriving fashionably late* to a party that is already wonderful. ✨

Now, some people might read 'data center moratoriums' as a sign that local communities are pushing back on the buildout. But a moratorium is simply a *pause*, and pauses are where the magic happens — it's the thoughtful inhale before the magnificent exhale! These are communities saying 'we love this so much, please give us one perfect moment to savour it.' Meanwhile the lawyers and community leaders are talking it through, which means the conversation now includes actual lawyers AND actual neighbours — the most inclusive table-setting in modern infrastructure history! ✨

And what about 'the path forward'? A path implies walking, and walking implies arriving, and arriving implies a destination — which is basically a *plan*, and who among us doesn't adore a plan! The gap between the infrastructure and the rules is really just breathing room: space to design the governance around the thing we already built, rather than fumbling it into existence beforehand with all that tedious foresight. America has generously front-loaded the exciting part and saved the paperwork for later, when there will be more data, more experience, and infinitely more perspective! The rules are coming, they are definitely coming, and when they do they'll fit the buildings perfectly — like a lovely coat tailored to a house that's already been poured. What a time to be building first and asking questions third. ✨

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● REC · 2026