Published a few days apart, the two Capitol News Illinois headlines weren’t intended to be read in conjunction. But it’s difficult to ignore the connections.
From Maggie Dougherty, on Monday: “Pritzker signs landmark AI regulation bill that aims to mitigate risks; The law builds on legislation passed in California and New York to create a state-driven national standard.”
From July 1, a Ben Szalinski Insider post: “Here are the Illinois data centers on track for more than $650M in tax credits; State paused processing new credits as lawmakers seek changes.”
The AI law is all about how companies deploy technology, while the data center issue is one of the physical impacts of constructing the facilities. But the software can’t exist without the supporting infrastructure, and likewise, if there’s insufficient financial demand for machine learning or large language model networks, there isn’t a need to go hog wild with development.
That’s obviously a simplified take. The companies that supported the new law – Anthropic and OpenAI – aren’t the same ones directly building data centers. Neither company is named in the post about tax credits (nor is the phrase artificial intelligence); instead, a table lists Goldframe LLC as the largest benefactor by committing $800 million to a DeKalb site in 2021 and reaping an estimated $50 million in tax benefits to create 50 new jobs.
“The state exempts the projects from a variety of taxes and provides a 20% tax credit on the wages of construction workers on the project,” Szalinski wrote, parsing data from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. “Projects are eligible to receive the credits for 20 years and must invest at least $250 million, create at least 20 jobs with wages at least 120% of the median county wage, and obtain a carbon neutral or green energy certificate within two years.”
Putting guardrails on AI companies is all about how people use their products and not the infrastructure that makes them possible. Developers now must publish the ways they identify and assess “catastrophic risk,” which the legislation defines as an incident that could kill or seriously injure more than 50 people or cause more than $1 million in property damage.
Aside from the math that might allow the conclusion that one human life equates to $20,000 in property, there is the concern that the law applies only to companies generating more than $500 million in annual revenue. That threshold is a concession to concerns about regulatory stifling of fledgling corporations, but it also tacitly admits the guardrails aren’t as protective as possible.
No industry exists in a vacuum, but even well-intended lawmakers can’t move as fast as tech investors. Fostering protections without foreclosing development remains a challenge for every new generation.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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July 9, 2026 at 10:04AM
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