In the United States, New York will be the first state to impose a moratorium on new “hyperscale” data centers, large facilities used by big tech and now AI companies, at a time when local governments across the country are trying to figure out how to regulate the proliferation of these high-energy-consuming facilities.
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The Democratic governor of New York State, Kathy Hochul, signed an executive order on Tuesday that bans the construction of these new data centers with an energy demand of 50 megawatts or more for up to one year, facilities that require large amounts of energy, water, and land for their infrastructure. The Empire State thus becomes the first American state to impose such a ban.
Hochul’s initiative comes at a time when individual states and the federal government are trying to maintain competitiveness in the field of artificial intelligence and create jobs for communities, while ensuring that data centers do not deplete natural resources or the capacity of the power grid, nor overly burden consumers’ wallets.
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According to the governor’s aides during a press briefing, the decision aims to give New York State more time to define a regulatory framework related to the construction of data centers and to assess the impact of these large facilities on the environment and utility costs for users. The aides clarified that this suspension is not intended to interfere with the activities of data centers that provide essential services, for example, to hospitals, schools, or research centers.
In June, the New York State legislature approved a measure that, among other things, imposes a one-year moratorium on the issuance of certain permits for the construction of large data centers. A governor’s aide told reporters that the implementation of the Responsible Data Center Development Act will take time and that Hochul deemed it necessary to act urgently to address the concerns of New Yorkers. The moratorium will be lifted once the state has developed a comprehensive framework to support municipalities and defined strict building standards.
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