OpenAI, SoftBank, Blackstone join unions in American Infrastructure Alliance for data-center guardrails
The American Infrastructure Alliance said Monday it is launching the first nationwide labor-business coalition focused on enforceable state and local guardrails for data-center growth, with inaugural members including OpenAI, SoftBank, Blackstone, CoreWeave, QTS, Digital Realty, and five major building-trades unions.
AI’s biggest political fight right now is local data-center bans. OpenAI, SoftBank, Blackstone, and CoreWeave lining up with building trades to write state guardrails is how the industry is trying to keep the buildout from getting vetoed county by county.
On Monday, 28 September 2026, the American Infrastructure Alliance said it was launching. AIA, the short name, is a coalition of labor unions and companies. The announcement went out on PR Newswire, datelined Washington, and the page stamps it 6:24 p.m. Eastern. AIA calls this the first nationwide coalition of labor and business focused on responsible, enforceable guardrails for data-center development at the state and local level. A data center is a building full of the computers that train and run AI. A guardrail, here, means a rule a state or a city can enforce. Those lines are AIA’s, on the wire.
Who is in at the start, as AIA names them. Five national building-trades unions: the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the International Association of Iron Workers, the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA), the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), and the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers (HFIAW). Two Ohio labor groups are on the same list: the Ohio State Building & Construction Trades Council, and ACT Ohio. The companies named are QTS, SoftBank, SB Energy, OpenAI, Blackstone, CoreWeave, Prologis, Skybox, Rowan, American Real Estate Partners (AREP) and its data-center business PowerHouse Data Centers, Related Digital, and Digital Realty. That roll is AIA’s. Axios, in a same-day exclusive, names a shorter set of backers — Blackstone, OpenAI, QTS, and SoftBank Group, plus the unions — and describes QTS as the Blackstone-owned data-center operator. The shorter list is Axios’s.
What AIA says it will do. It will support locally grounded standards, not a one-size-fits-all template. The work starts ahead of the 2027 state legislative sessions and continues through them. A session is the stretch of the year when a state legislature writes laws. AIA says it is not focused on the upcoming election. The same release says the group works with Democrats and Republicans on guardrails that allow growth and still protect communities. Those lines are AIA’s. Axios reported that the coalition wants to partner with state and local officials on standards for 2027, and that it hopes to head off moratoriums on new construction. A moratorium is a pause that stops new projects. Axios described the group as multimillion-dollar. The wire does not print a budget.
The states AIA names as where it is operating now are Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and South Carolina. AIA says the work in those states will be led locally, with room to add states later. Axios reported the same seven as the places where the group is planning its first campaigns. Those seven names are on the wire and in the Axios story.
AIA says the approach comes from its own polling in those states. The release says that polling shows support for data-center development moving from deep skepticism to clear majority support once enforceable guardrails are proposed and spelled out. The wire does not name a pollster, a sample size, or a percentage. Axios, writing about the group’s own Ohio poll, said 67 percent of people surveyed held an unfavorable view of data centers, against 18 percent favorable, and that those numbers flip when projects pledge to keep electricity costs low, create jobs, and bring in tax revenue. Axios does not print what the shares become after they flip. The 67 and the 18 are Axios’s account of the group’s poll. They are not figures on the wire.
The standards AIA says it will support, in the release’s list. Protect water and local resources, with binding promises on how water is used. Require projects to pay their own way, so developers and operators cover the energy and the infrastructure, and households are not handed the extra bill. Create good jobs and long-term work for skilled trades. Deliver local benefits, including schools, roads, and community buildings. Hold operators accountable, with clear standards and someone watching. Those five lines are AIA’s.
Kenneth Cooper, international president of the IBEW, said blanket bans on these projects would set the economy back and threaten good middle-class jobs, and that the union wants responsible development that helps workers, communities, and the country. Tag Greason, co-chief executive of QTS, said communities should be able to count on clear promises about resource use, infrastructure spending, economic opportunity, and local benefits, and that AIA will put out a set of principles in the coming weeks as a starting point. Those quotations are on the wire. Axios also prints Cooper’s line on blanket bans, and Greason’s line that responsible growth requires clear expectations for everyone involved.
In plain terms, unions that build data centers and companies that want them built, including OpenAI, SoftBank, Blackstone, and CoreWeave, have formed one group to push state and local rules in seven states before the 2027 sessions. AIA says the rules should be local, enforceable, and paid for by the projects. Axios says the point is to partner with officials and head off construction pauses, and it calls the effort multimillion-dollar.
The picture is the American Infrastructure Alliance’s official logo from the launch: interlocking red and blue gears on a navy card. It is the coalition’s mark. It is not a photograph of a data center.