- Nvidia is looking to set up a political action committee (PAC)
- Many companies have set up PACs to help shape US policy
- The US mid-term elections have seen a record level of corporate funding
Companies using their money to shape policy in the United States is nothing new - in fact, it’s the whole reason the US is so dependent on car-centric infrastructure and transport thanks to the work of numerous motoring lobbying groups.
Groups such as Political Action Committees (PACs) donate to politicians aligned with their interests in the hopes of helping them win elections. The capital they provide is tax exempt and can be used for campaign advertisements and canvassing.
Now Nvidia might be getting involved in the PAC party, as the company plans to set up an employee-funded committee called NVPAC, according to a source familiar with the matter (via Reuters). Nvidia has refused to comment on the plans, but what sort of policy could it be looking to influence?
Nvidia wants its own PAC
The corporate world has already shown its hand in the US political election cycle, but tech companies are becoming more and more involved in electoral donating and funding. Donald Trump received a whopping $242 million from Elon Musk in the run up to the 2025 election.
Following his inauguration, multiple tech companies including Meta, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, and Broadcom made voluntary $1 million donations to Trump’s Inaugural Committee Fund.
Nvidia has seen huge growth during the AI boom. Its hardware is used across the AI ecosystem and the company has scaled up production and capacity to become the largest supplier of AI GPUs.
These GPUs are used in data centers to provide the necessary compute for AI models to be trained, run, and used by many different AI firms. But plans for data center developments across the US have seen some serious hurdles in the form of local and national opposition.
So much so that many state representatives are implementing moratoriums on data centers, or introducing legislation to make it harder for data centers to be built. In Q1 of this year, $130 billion worth of AI data center projects were cancelled or delayed due to public opposition.
The Trump administration’s policy has made clear that the US must lead in AI at any cost, particularly for reasons of national security. But that is at odds with many of Trump’s supportive MAGA base. Data centers have now become a key issue of the 2026 midterm elections, which has seen a record $646 million in donations from corporate entities.
The majority of Americans have made it clear that they have are concerned about AI and locally opposed to data centers, and to many of Trump’s inaugural donors that's bad news for business.
But there are few candidates willing to say they are pro-data centers. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott - who was once an advocate for data center development in Texas - recently criticized data center developers for their public image, stating they “got the backlash they deserve.”
Candidates who campaign from an anti-data center standpoint are taking a serious risk. The corporate entities funding candidates want them built, but those they represent don’t. This puts many candidates between a rock and a hard place.
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