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The California State Assembly recently unveiled legislation (“AB 325”) designed to strengthen California antitrust enforcement in two ways.

Digital infrastructure demand paced by a rapid increase in AI computing and expectations for more in the coming years have spurred interest in modular data centers (“MDCs”).

Alexa Chally, Sean Dao, Bader Thabti, and Joshua Hayes outline the complex legal and infrastructure challenges in developing AI-ready data centers, highlighting the immense power demands, evolving regulatory frameworks, and the importance of tailored power purchase agreements (PPAs). They emphasize that successful development requires coordinated legal strategies across energy, finance, and technology sectors to support AI’s accelerating growth.

Hill Wellford and Mike Scarborough offered insights on antitrust developments affecting the technology industry.

Driven by the demand for AI-ready cloud infrastructure, the market cap for global data center construction, currently valued at more than $250 billion, is set to double in less than ten years, reaching half a trillion dollars by 2034.

On January 13, 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (“Texas AG”) filed the first-ever enforcement action under the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (“TDPSA”) against insurance company Allstate and its subsidiary, Arity (collectively, “Defendants”).

On November 7, 2024, the Transportation Security Administration (the “TSA”) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the “Proposed Rule”) that would mandate cyber risk management (“CRM”) and reporting requirements for certain surface transportation owners and operators, including certain pipeline, freight railroad, passenger railroad, rail transit, and over-the-road bus owners and operators.

On January 13, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued its Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, an Interim Final Rule revising the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) to expand controls on advanced computing integrated circuits, commonly called microchips (“ICs”) and impose new licensing requirements for artificial intelligence (“AI”) model weights (the “AI Diffusion Rule”).

On January 14, 2025, President Joe Biden issued an executive order aimed at advancing U.S. leadership in AI infrastructure (the “Order”).

The incoming Trump administration is expected to make several policy changes likely to impact tech transactions. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reduce regulation and cut federal bureaucracy, which he says have suppressed innovation, increased the cost of goods, and caused jobs to shift oversees.