Because California’s tech laws often serve as defacto national standard for other states, AI stakeholders are carefully reviewing a cluster of new bills that were passed last week by Governor Gavin Newsom to protect constituents as well as to “protect California’s leadership in AI.”  The specifics of each landmark law that was passed can be found here, but relevant to AI infrastructure is the Ratepayer and Technological Innovation Protection Act, SB 57, which includes a mandate for the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to assess data center electricity use by January 1, 2027. The results will inform the creation of a “special tariff” designed to shield residential and small business ratepayers from transmission costs and ensure that the investments needed for new data centers come from the data centers themselves. In addition, the bill will align the state’s data center investments with its climate goals. So far, the bill does not go as far as Ohio’s Public Utilities Commission did this past summer, when it passed a settlement requiring that new data centers pay 85% of their requested energy.

Also relevant to AI infrastructure are AB853, the first U.S. frontier-AI law, extending the compliance deadline for the existing AI Transparency Act — including requirements for latent and manifest disclosures in AI-generated content — to August 2, 2026. Additionally, the law directly requires large online platforms, generative AI system-hosting platforms, and capture device manufacturers to make AI detection tools available (at no cost to users) to people who want to assess whether generative AI systems were used to create or alter images, videos, audio content, or any combination thereof.

In tandem, Governor Newsom also passed SB243, a Companion Chatbot law that requires operators to be transparent with children and other users about whether they are interacting with AI or a human being. Notably, the law requires 

that operators implement safety protocols to prevent the dissemination of certain harmful content, and calls for annual reports to the Office of Suicide Prevention – information that will be shared with the public.

In somewhat related news, Nathan Calvin, legal counsel for the three-person non-profit Encode, went viral with a post on X last Friday. He claimed OpenAI had subpoenaed him and other non profits that advocated for the passage of the aforementioned legislation. Six other nonprofit groups acknowledged they too were subpoenaed as part of OpenAI’s lawsuit against Elon Musk. OpenAI fired back that the subpoenas were connected to the lawsuit with Musk, and in no way meant to intimidate anyone. A review of four of the subpoenas by NBC showed a request for information about the organizations’ funders and donations, and requests for communications regarding Musk, Meta and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. OpenAI had previously expressed suspicions about Meta and Zuckerberg’s involvement in Musk’s $97 billion bid to buy OpenAI in February.