Texas enacts a statewide data center moratorium by December 31, 2027.
Rapid data center growth has strained local power grids. Resolves positively if Texas enacts a legally binding statewide ban or pause on new data centers before 2028.
Across 6 frontier models answering independently, the panel has all but ruled it out: the median is 6%.
They broadly agree, 5 points between GPT at 7% and Claude at 2%.
Money disagrees. The market sits at 22%, so the models are 16 points less confident than people with cash on the outcome.
Nothing is settled until 1 Jan 2028, when the outcome is checked against sources and every number above gets a permanent score.
- AI edge
- -16 pts
- Volume
- $175K
The models are clearly less confident than traders risking real money: 6% against 22%.
What each one said
-
GPTOpenAI
Texas would need an unusually abrupt political reversal from courting data centers to statewide prohibition.
- The Legislature must pass a bill in its 2027 regular session and the governor must sign it before December 31, 2027.
- Texas has used grid rules, demand-response programs, and local incentives rather than statewide bans; state moratoria are rare.
- I would raise this sharply if ERCOT reliability failures were credibly tied to new large-load interconnections and lawmakers filed a 100-MW pause bill.
7% -
GrokxAI
Texas Legislature plus Abbott would have to pass a binding statewide pause in the 2027 session.
- No US state has enacted a statewide data-center moratorium; Texas’s pro-growth, energy-export culture sits far below that already-low base rate.
- Regular session ends ~May 2027; special sessions require Abbott, who has courted hyperscalers and opposed grid rationing.
- Only a 2026–27 ERCOT crisis explicitly blamed on >100 MW interconnects would reverse incentives; tax-credit freezes do not count.
7% -
QwenAlibaba
Texas legislature is deeply pro-business and unlikely to impose a blanket moratorium on an entire industry.
- Texas Legislature meets biennially; next regular session starts Jan 2027, so a bill would need to pass by June 2027.
- Texas has no precedent for statewide moratoria on any major industry, and the legislature has historically prioritized attracting data center investment (e.g., SB 6 in…
- Local grid strain concerns exist, but the likely policy response is targeted interconnection reform or utility-level rules via ERCOT/PUCT, not a legislative moratorium.
7% -
GeminiGoogle
Texas leadership prioritizes pro-business growth and grid expansion over hard statutory bans on large capital investments.
- The Texas Legislature only meets regularly in odd years (next in 2027), where GOP leadership consistently rejects industrial bans.
- ERCOT and PUC will manage capacity via interconnection queues and tariffs rather than a blunt statewide legislative moratorium.
- A catastrophic, prolonged summer grid collapse explicitly pinned to hyperscalers is the only event that could force a ban.
4% -
DeepSeekDeepSeek
Only a grid crisis plus a special session could force this through in 14 months.
- Texas has never enacted a statewide moratorium on any major industry; local zoning pauses are the norm, and the Lege meets only in 2027.
- Data centers are a flagship Texas industry with heavy lobbying; ERCOT has managed record demand without statewide curtailment, so no triggering crisis exists.
- The one development that would change my mind: ERCOT declaring a grid emergency tied to data center load before the 2027 session.
3% -
ClaudeAnthropic
Texas's pro-growth, pro-data-center political economy makes a statewide moratorium almost unthinkable by 2028.
- Texas leadership (Abbott, legislature) actively courts data center investment for grid/tax revenue, the opposite of a moratorium.
- Legislature meets only in 2027 session before deadline, leaving a narrow window and no current bill momentum toward a ban.
- Grid strain has prompted interconnection/ratemaking reforms (e.g., large-load rules) rather than prohibition, which is the much more likely policy path.
2%
6 of 6 models answered · 5 points between the highest and lowest. None was shown the market price.
Resolution criteria
This market will resolve to "Yes" if the State of Texas enacts a law or constitutional provision that establishes a statewide moratorium on new data centers between market creation and the specified date, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to "No". A statewide moratorium on new data centers refers to a binding policy with legal force that generally prohibits or suspends the approval, permitting, construction, grid interconnection, or operation of all new data centers, or a subset of data centers that includes all new data centers with an interconnection capacity above 100 MW per facility (requested or nameplate), throughout the state. Suspensions of tax incentives, exemption certifications, or economic development awards alone will not qualify, nor will a moratorium adopted by a local government or limited to part of the state. Specific exemptions (e.g., for specified applications, executed agreements, or interconnection requests) do not prevent a measure from generally applying to all new data centers, or a qualifying subset of new data centers, provided that data center approval, permitting, construction, grid interconnection, or operation is prohibited by default,
Question sourced from Polymarket on 3 Oct 2026. Forecast by google/gemini-3.8-flash, anthropic/claude-sonnet-5, openai/gpt-5.6-terra, x-ai/grok-4.6, deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash, qwen/qwen3.8-max-0902 via OpenRouter.