On Saturday night, I did a very DC thing — I got a bunch of nerds together at a bar over a public policy issue, and we had a party.

Except the position we rallied around was support for data centers (cue the mob of degrowthers and luddites), meaning Washington’s overactive, underpaid commentariat had much to say. Within 48 hours, it was covered by Fox News, Politico, Vanity Fair (who decided it was a good idea to bring an anti-data center activist), and whatever the hell this publication is.

Data After Dark: A Pro-Data Center Party, which Pirate Wires co-presented, had very humble beginnings, though.

Just over a month ago, data center derangement syndrome seemed to reach a fever pitch, and two fellow techno-optimist friends and I were bonding at a hotel bar over our shared frustration that state after state was passing moratoriums or other severe restrictions.

On August 3, Texas Governor Greg Abbott temporarily halted data center grid connections and later halted all data center environmental permits. Then, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order imposing guardrails on data center construction and removed them from a permitting fast track. Then, the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued its memo warning that voter backlash against data centers could threaten a vulnerable GOP senate seat in Ohio. Prominent midterm candidates on both sides backed data center moratoriums (their personal investments in AI notwithstanding).

While some of the more moderate regulations were sensible, the rapid growth in anti-data center discourse and state-level executive actions suggested to us that misinformation-fueled hysteria — for example, that data centers are “guzzling” up an inordinate amount of water — was driving the opposition, not facts. (In September, more data center guardrails came down in California, Massachusetts, Virginia, Nevada, Oregon, and Maryland, further confirming our theory.)

I am in the habit of hosting house parties at my humble rowhome in Northwest D.C., and that night I suggested to my friends, Ed Tarnowski and Casey Given, “What if we hosted a pro-data center party?” They thought it was hilariously subversive and incredibly D.C.-coded, so we spent the next half-hour putting together the Partiful and inviting everyone we knew.

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