CHANDLER, Ariz. — Former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema had a warning for a Phoenix suburb that is debating whether to allow a data center.
During a planning and zoning commission meeting for Chandler on Oct. 15, Sinema told the city council that the Trump administration is clear about the need to invest in artificial intelligence and set up data centers nationwide.
Chandler is a community of nearly 300,000 located southeast of Phoenix.
“Chandler right now has the opportunity to determine how and when these new, innovative AI data centers will be built,” she said.
“When federal preemption comes, we’ll no longer have that privilege. It will just occur.”
What did Kyrsten Sinema say
The former senator was making her case for the Price Road Innovation Campus, a potentially $2.5-billion project by a New York-based developer, to build a data center and five office buildings in Chandler, a suburb in the Phoenix valley.
The artificial intelligence data center and tech park project currently don’t meet the land use requirements for the area. The site for this proposed project has remained vacant since 2019.
David de la Torre, planning manager for Chandler, said that the idea is reserved for “knowledge-based industries and preserving and expanding campus-like environments.”
“Staff finds that data centers provide significantly lower numbers of jobs after construction is complete compared to the high-value employment industries that are targeted for the corridor,” de la Torre said.
But Adam Baugh, a zoning and land use attorney representing the developer, said that this project will attract companies from industries like tech, health care and aerospace who want to be situated close to the data center.
Sinema argued that AI is already taking away jobs in Chandler’s tech district, the South Price Road Corridor.
There are three call centers that exist on this corridor and all of them will cease to exist within five years, the former senator argued.
“The way to get more jobs in this corridor is to build the compute power that will attract the companies of tomorrow, the compute power that they will need close to them in order to function at the highest levels,” Sinema said.
Sinema said the AI Infrastructure Coalition, which she founded earlier this year and of which she is the co-chair, is “working hand-in-glove with the Trump administration to ensure American AI dominance.”
She hailed Chandler as the home of the semiconductor revolution before pitching the next path forward.
“We are now at the tip of AI revolution city council to ensure that this development, not an AI data center, this AI hub, meets the ordinance that was passed by the city council in 2022,” she said.
The planning and zoning commission will finalize their decision on Nov. 15. Despite the recommended denial of the project, the commission voted 5-1 to recommend that the city council approves the rezoning request, as per the Phoenix Business Journal.
Kyrsten Sinema after her exit from Senate
The Arizona Democrat-turned-independent works for international law firm Hogan Lovells that represents and lobbies on the behalf of many clients in the artificial intelligence industry.
Sinema is subject to a two-year wait period before she can lobby for a firm, but she can still serve as an adviser.
“Sinema’s extensive experience in AI, technology, digital assets, private equity, and cryptocurrency” were cited in her hiring announcement.
She launched the Spark Center with Arizona State University in April this year.
It’s a partnership with AI product ChatGPT aimed at supporting neurodivergent individuals though technological solutions. Sinema donated $3 million of her campaign funds to this initiative.
She talked about this initiative during an appearance on CNN with host Jake Tapper in September.
“So these are kids who are autistic, or have ADHD or dyslexic, and who maybe are falling through the cracks in the school system, or whose parents don’t know how to help them get to their full potential,” Sinema said. She added that the Spark Center will “develop tools that help them throughout the lifelong learning process.”
Sinema told Tapper the Trump administration is “knocking it out of the park” when it comes to AI policy.
She praised David Sacks’ appointment as AI and cryptocurrency czar.
Of the White House’s AI action plan, Sinema said, “It is well-reasoned, it is well-thought, it is ambitious. It really strikes a path for us to win the AI race against China, which I think is of national security importance but also kind of an existential threat that we face as a country.”