Where do Alaska’s four governor candidates stand on data centers?

On the day that his campaign announced it had accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from employees of a California-based artificial intelligence company, Democratic governor candidate Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins said that if elected, he will seek to temporarily ban new computing data centers in Alaska.

As Americans grow frustrated with artificial intelligence software and concerned about the side effects of data centers, they have become a major issue in this year’s midterm elections. Alaska’s gubernatorial race is no exception, particularly since the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority announced plans for a development that could include data centers in Southcentral Alaska. 

All four candidates — Republicans Dave Bronson, Treg Taylor and Bernadette Wilson and the Democratic Kreiss-Tomkins — have staked out different policy positions before Alaskans vote this fall.

Data centers need reliable connections to the internet, cheap electricity and a cooling method. Currently, the North Slope is the most promising location for all three. 

One $500 million proposal on the North Slope intends to burn local natural gas for power and use the natural cold air of the Arctic. 

Another shipping-container-sized plan involves a gas-powered data center processing Bitcoin.

Current Gov. Mike Dunleavy has backed data centers, saying they could be an economic driver — they would create construction jobs and demand for infrastructure that would enable further development. 

Dunleavy is term-limited and cannot run again this year. Four candidates remain in the race to replace him.

“I’m a big believer in data centers. I know that might be unpopular with some folks here,” said Bronson at a candidate forum hosted by Commonwealth North in Anchorage on Thursday.

A former Anchorage Mayor, retired Air Force pilot and former director of the state’s largest airport, Bronson said he sees economic opportunity if data centers are built in Alaska, and he would like to encourage them.

“The logistics (are) minimal, and there’s a lot of money in data centers, but you’ve got to deal with the noise. You’ve got to deal with the cooling, and you’ve got to deal — certainly — with the electricity. And the groups that I’m talking to, they said we’re not going to take your electricity because it’s not reliable. … We will produce our own, and we will move, and we will build our own data centers. That’s good for us. That’s a very strong revenue source,” Bronson said.

At a Sept. 8 forum in Anchorage, Taylor — the state’s former attorney general — offered a similar perspective.

“I think we need to embrace it,” he said of data centers. 

“We have all the makings of a great place for a data center to thrive and produce good-paying jobs for Alaskans,” Taylor said.

He added that electricity costs are his biggest concern. Any data center must “bring their own energy,” he said, and if a data center then sells excess power it generates, it could be a benefit to Alaskans if it is cheaper than other power available nearby.

“It doesn’t have to drive up costs if you do it correctly. It can produce a net savings to the ratepayers in Alaska,” he said.

Bronson and Taylor each said they see data centers as the future and fear that Alaska will miss out if it doesn’t embrace them.

“It’s a service everybody’s using and everybody has to adapt to and use, or you’re going to get left behind,” Taylor said.

Kreiss-Tomkins is advocating a temporary pause on data center development in the state.

“I support a moratorium on data center development in Alaska until the Legislature can pass a comprehensive regulatory framework for that development in Alaska,” he said during a Sept. 8 forum in Anchorage.

Any limits on development would be decided by negotiations between himself and the Legislature, he said.

While Kreiss-Tomkins’ campaign has received large donations from people employed by the AI company Anthropic, those employees have tended to recommend restrictions on AI development as well.

This year, the Alaska Senate voted 14-5 to pass a data center bill, but the House failed to take it up before the end of the legislative session. That bill would have regulated how data centers can use electricity from public utilities and would have required them to create decommissioning plans. 

The sponsor of the bill, Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, will return to the Legislature next year, and the coalition majority that passed the bill is also likely to return, meaning that the next governor will likely be confronted with similar legislation.

Kreiss-Tomkins has also endorsed legislation that would ban AI-generated fake images intended to mislead the public and a bill that would require political advertisers to disclose AI-generated content. 

Wilson, asked about her position by text message, criticized Kreiss-Tomkins’ campaign for accepting large contributions from AI company employees.

“Unlike Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins — better known as Chat JKT — our campaign is not funded with hundreds of thousands of dollars from California AI companies hoping to own our governor and exploit our state,” she said before explaining her position. “Our administration will make independent decisions that are in the best interest of Alaska, not big donors from the Lower 48. I will never allow Alaska to be littered with hyperscale data centers that take our resources and spoil our lands. Our natural beauty, environment and quality of life matter to every person who calls Alaska home and my job is to represent them, not big tech liberals.”