- New York is close to a one-year data center moratorium
- The governor still needs to sign the bill into law
- Proponents of the ban want to see more detail on environmental impact
Public sentiment appears to have turned towards large data center developments, and the trend shows no signs of stopping. Now we may have the first statewide ban of its kind in New York, after lawmakers passed a one-year moratorium (a temporary ban) on large data centers with a peak demand of 20 megawatts or more.
As The Guardian reports, while the New York State legislature has passed the moratorium, it’s not law yet: it still needs the signature of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who hasn’t said one way or the other whether she’ll approve the bill and has until December to decide.
So there are caveats here. It’s more of a temporary pause than a ban, it’s not written into law yet, and it only applies to large data centers. Still, it is potentially the biggest legal step to date against the construction of these data processing structures.
“This is one of the first times that we’re really drawing a line in the sand and saying that as a state legislature, we have a responsibility to make sure that New Yorkers are in the driver’s seat,” said New York State Senator Kristen Gonzalez. “Big tech has been used to writing their own rules or not having rules to play by.”
Keeping the AI lights on
The purpose of the moratorium is to give New York authorities more time to assess the impact of data centers in terms of their energy consumption and environmental impact, and the state environmental agency will be tasked with compiling a report that accounts for the demand for electricity, water and land coming from these buildings.
A recent survey suggested that 71 percent of Americans do not want data centers built in their local area, with concerns over water and electricity consumption the main reasons – so these structures are now less popular than nuclear power plants.
The main reason that so much computing power is needed is of course AI. Despite promises from AI companies that data centers will become much more environmentally friendly in the near future, this is not the case for many projects currently in the planning stages.
As The Register reports, the moratorium also has its detractors. Some politicians and industry professionals argue that data center development is essential to economic growth and technological progress, while acknowledging that concerns over energy consumption and environmental impact need to be addressed.
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