Tech news, 5 November 2026: voters push back on data centres, Google backstops Anthropic's lease, an exploited WordPress core flaw and Meta buys Conductor

1. US voters reject data centres almost everywhere they were asked

Voters sided against data centres in 40 of 41 data centre-related local ballot measures in 10 states in the 3 November midterms, according to CNBC's analysis based on Ballotpedia data; results were preliminary in some places¹. Scientific American reports the results show widespread opposition to AI data centres, with Ohio accounting for many of the measures².

CTO take: local consent is becoming a real constraint on AI capacity, alongside power and chips. Expect slower new builds in some US regions and more competition for existing capacity. If you depend on reserved GPU capacity in specific US regions, confirm your provider's build plans and keep alternatives in other regions; see planning around the AI capacity crunch and the US page.

2. Google backstops Anthropic's $19 billion data centre lease

TeraWulf disclosed on 4 November that Google will provide credit support for project financing tied to about $19 billion of Anthropic lease commitments at its Kentucky campus, a backstop that falls away if Anthropic achieves and keeps investment grade credit ratings³. TeraWulf also signed a construction agreement with Fluor for the project³.

CTO take: the financing chains behind AI capacity are getting longer, linking model providers, cloud companies, data centre developers and lenders. For buyers, this mostly means capacity arrives on long timelines and is concentrated among a few providers. Keep your stack able to move between providers; see model routing.

3. A WordPress core flaw is being exploited

CISA added a WordPress core vulnerability, CVE-2026-119977, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue on 3 November⁴. BleepingComputer reports it is a race condition in WordPress core's update process that attackers have begun exploiting after the patch was released⁵.

CTO take: WordPress runs a huge share of marketing sites, and many are owned by marketing teams rather than engineering. Find every WordPress site your organisation runs, including agency-hosted ones, confirm they are on the patched release and check for unexpected admin accounts or files. See securing a legacy PHP estate.

4. Meta buys AI coding startup Conductor

Meta has acquired Conductor, a startup whose software lets engineers run several AI coding agents in parallel, Axios reported on 4 November; terms were not disclosed⁶. Axios also reported that OpenAI said the same day it was acquiring developer tools startup Pierre Computer⁶.

CTO take: the big labs are buying their way into developers' daily tools. If your teams rely on a small vendor's coding tool, have a plan for it being shut down or changed after an acquisition, as Conductor's cloud service reportedly will be. Keep your coding-agent policy and controls independent of any one tool; see AI coding policy for engineering teams.

What I'd do this week

• Patch every WordPress site, including ones run by agencies, and check for signs of compromise.
• Ask your cloud and AI providers about capacity plans in the US regions you depend on.
• List the small vendors in your AI coding toolchain and what you would do if one disappeared.

See where I work, or analyse your challenge and bring the result to a call.