New York moved closer toward becoming the first US state to enact a moratorium on large datacenters this week. On Thursday, the state legislature approved a one-year ban on the facilities powering the AI boom.
The measure now heads to Kathy Hochul, the governor, who will decide whether to sign it into law. The Guardian spoke to a state senator in the wake of the historic vote about authoring the bill and the wider US backlash against datacenters.
Thursday’s vote comes as anger toward datacenters, and AI, sweeps the nation. Almost three-quarters of Americans oppose a datacenter project being built near their homes, according to a new Heatmap poll. Many local communities across the country, including in New York, have already enacted a patchwork of moratoriums on datacenters. But some residents are feeling overwhelmed by the pace and secrecy of development – and they’re calling on state governments for help.
Kristen Gonzalez, a New York state senator, Kristen Gonzalez wanted to buy her state some time. She co-authored a bill that would temporarily ban “hyperscale” datacenters over 20MW.
“Big tech has been used to writing their own rules, or not having rules that they have to play by, when it comes to new technology,” Gonzalez says. “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 the responsibility to make sure that New Yorkers are in the driver’s seat.”
How would New York’s temporary ban on datacenters work?
The moratorium largely targets datacenters built by “tech goliaths” and will not apply to facilities already possessing the necessary state permits, Gonzalez says. She notes that currently, there are at least 28 large data centers being evaluated by the state for their impact on the grid and that they would “add an additional 9,682MW of energy onto the state’s already constrained and aging grid”.
“We should not have to sacrifice our water, our energy, our green space and local communities for big tech and specifically for generative AI, which is oftentimes used for things like AI slop,” Gonzalez says. Gonzalez says she introduced the bill after hearing from concerned New Yorkers and a coalition of environmental justice advocates.
In addition to imposing a one-year moratorium, the bill would also require an environmental impact report, which would document water and electricity usage, as well as new labor, energy efficiency and transparency standards, and ratepayer protections aimed at keeping New Yorkers’ energy bills low.
The original proposal included a three-year pause on datacenter development but was reduced to one year as a compromise.
A part of a nationwide pushback
More than a dozen US states have considered moratoria in response to residents’ fears about the potential costs of living next to…
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
