US data center bans surpass 500 as New York and Texas join local pushback against new construction
More than 500 US towns, counties and two states have now banned or restricted new data centers, up from roughly 300 in late June. New York imposed a one-year moratorium, the first state to do so. Texas paused approvals for about 1,800 proposed data centers pending a grid audit.
More than 500 US towns, counties and now two states have moved to ban or restrict new data center construction, according to tracking of local ordinances, up from roughly 300 such measures in late June. New York became the first state to impose a statewide moratorium, pausing new data center construction for one year. Texas followed with its own restrictions: Governor Greg Abbott ordered a pause on approvals for around 1,800 proposed data centers, covering roughly 474 gigawatts of requested grid capacity, pending an audit of their impact on the state's power grid. Local opposition is largely driven by concerns over noise, water consumption and the strain new facilities place on electricity and water services shared with residents. The wave of bans means the AI industry's data center expansion is increasingly constrained not just by chip and power supply, but by local and state-level political resistance that has scaled up sharply within a matter of months.