医疗保健行业长期以来一直使用复杂的合同，这些合同可能会掩盖谁为何买单。马克·库班表示，数据中心开发商正在采用类似的策略。“许多社区在为数据中心谈判交易时真的很愚蠢，”库班在周三发布的一期《A16z Show》节目中说。“在很多情况下，他们中了合同恐怖主义的圈套。”库班联合创立了Cost Plus Drugs公司，该公司以透明的加价销售仿制药，他此前在讨论医疗保健时创造了“合同恐怖主义”这一说法。
Healthcare has long used complex contracts that can obscure who pays for what. Mark Cuban says data center developers are using a similar playbook. "A lot of communities have been really dumb with the deals they've negotiated for data centers," Cuban said on an episode of "The A16z Show" released on Wednesday. "They've fallen for the contractual terrorism in a lot of cases." Cuban, who co-founded Cost Plus Drugs, a company that sells generic medicines at a transparent markup, previously coined the phrase "contractual terrorism" while discussing healthcare.
在A16z播客中，他说，大型医疗保险公司及其子公司利用庞大、不透明的协议来掩盖成本，使雇主难以知晓资金去向。库班表示，这些合同“又大又长”，让保险公司“得以成为合同恐怖分子”——他也将这一表述套用到了社区的数据中心交易上。
On the A16z podcast, he said massive healthcare insurers and their subsidiaries use sprawling, opaque agreements to obscure costs and make it difficult for employers to know where their money is going. Cuban said those contracts are "so big and so long" that insurers "get to be contractual terrorists" — a formulation he also applied to communities' data center deals.
他的言论正值数据中心建设热潮已成为全美各地社区极具争议的议题之际。住在设施附近的居民反映，持续不断的低频嗡嗡声、柴油味、刺眼灯光、施工干扰、水电供应承压，以及树木和空地的消失。在作为全国数据中心之都的弗吉尼亚北部，当地反对声浪已帮助重塑选举格局、引发诉讼，并推动居民要求更严格的噪音和分区规定。马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校9月对1000名美国人的民调显示，65%的人反对在其当地社区建设AI数据中心，其中49%表示强烈反对。
His comments come as the data center boom has become a hugely contentious issue in communities across the US. Residents living near facilities have reported incessant low-frequency hums, diesel smells, intrusive lights, construction disruption, pressure on water and electricity supplies, and the loss of trees and open land. In Northern Virginia, the country's data center capital, local opposition has helped reshape elections, prompted lawsuits, and pushed residents to demand tighter noise and zoning rules. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll of 1,000 Americans from September found that 65% opposed building an AI data center in their local community, including 49% who said they strongly opposed it.
竞相建设AI基础设施也产生了远多于实际运营设施的宣布项目。通过卫星图像、许可证及其他记录追踪项目的Aterio统计，截至10月20日，美国已宣布的设施达8268个。但只有2126个处于运营状态，861个在建。
The race to build AI infrastructure has also produced far more announcements than operating facilities. Aterio, which tracks projects through satellite imagery, permits, and other records, counted 8,268 announced US facilities as of October 20. But only 2,126 were active, and 861 were under construction.
数千个项目刚刚被宣布，导致地方政府必须就可能永远停留在新闻稿阶段的项目谈判具有重大影响的长期协议。这正是库班所警告的风险。库班在九月的一系列 X 帖子中，提出了一个针对考虑建设首个数据中心的社区的十点行动指南，主张开发商的每一项承诺都应附带可衡量的上限、独立监督、资金保障以及违约时的补救措施。库班的建议是，在开工前先解决这些问题。库班当时写道：“在批准耗尽镇上最后杠杆的项目之前先把问题解决。”
Thousands more had just been announced, leaving local governments to negotiate consequential long-term agreements for projects that may never progress beyond a press release. That is a risk Cuban has warned about. In a series of X posts in September, he laid out a 10-point playbook for communities considering their first data center, arguing that every promise from a developer should come with a measurable limit, independent oversight, financial backing, and a remedy if it is broken. Cuban's advice is to settle those questions before construction begins. "Resolve it before granting the approval that spends the last of the town's leverage," Cuban wrote at the time.