Bernie Sanders Introduces AI Safety Bill That Would Halt Data Center Construction

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation that would freeze new data center construction until federal AI safety standards are established, making it the most aggressive AI regulatory proposal to target physical infrastructure rather than model development. The bill represents a new approach to AI regulation by targeting the compute supply chain. Previous legislative efforts focused on model capabilities, training data, and deployment safeguards. By targeting construction, the proposal would directly constrain the rate of AI scaling regardless of which company or model is involved.