Analysis
Build American AI, an entity affiliated with the Leading the Future super PAC, is spending millions of dollars on advertising in Kansas, Ohio and Wisconsin arguing the case for data centers in states where opposition has become a central theme of statewide elections, TechCrunch reported.
The funding chain is short and public. Leading the Future launched with more than $50 million, backed by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of a16z alongside OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Anna Brockman. Build American AI is the issue-advocacy vehicle that spends against public opinion rather than against candidates directly, which is the structure that lets it run persuasion ads without a candidate endorsement. Pulse has previously covered a16z across its venture and growth-fund activity this year.
The awkward part is OpenAI's position. The company distanced itself from Leading the Future in June 2026, saying the group operates independently and cautioning against "tactics like astroturfing that obscure the real choices facing policymakers and the public." Its president is a funder. Both things are true simultaneously, and both will be quoted back at the company in every siting hearing this fall.
“Pulse has previously covered a16z across its venture and growth-fund activity this year.”
The spend is a direct response to a measurable problem. Data centers drove roughly half of US electricity demand growth last year, retail power bills are up about 40% since 2021, and PJM's market monitor has tied roughly $23 billion of customer cost increases through 2028 to data center load. Those are the arguments Build American AI has to answer, and they are arithmetic rather than sentiment.
For the venture industry this is a genuine strategic shift. Firms have funded policy work before -- crypto's Fairshake PAC raised well over $100 million across the 2024 cycle and is the direct template here. What is new is that the asset being defended is physical: transformers, substations, water rights and county tax abatements, all of which are decided by officials who can be replaced at an off-year election. Software regulation could be lobbied in Washington. Siting cannot.
Whether it works is an open question. Fairshake's wins came in primaries with low turnout and low salience. Data centers have the opposite profile in Ohio and Wisconsin right now -- high salience, high turnout, and a utility bill arriving monthly to reinforce the opposing message. Ad spending is weakest exactly where voters already have a personal data point.
