Since this year, cities, towns, counties and state governments across the United States have introduced policies to halt new data center projects within their jurisdictions. The information platform The Information comprehensively reviewed legal documents and local news reports and found that since 2023, U.S. states and local governments have issued more than 300 temporary or permanent bans on the construction of data centers, and more than 75 related policies are under review. The vast majority of bans have been implemented this year: more than 275 bans have officially come into effect since January 1, and more than 150 have been added since May alone.
Policies restricting the construction of data centers have swept across the United States. Relevant policies have been implemented in small towns, vast counties, large and medium-sized cities, and even indigenous tribal territories. Three major cities, Seattle, New Orleans, and Denver, have introduced bans, and small towns such as Normal, Illinois, and Peculier, Missouri have also introduced similar restrictions.
Among them, opposition is the most intense in the central, western and southern regions, where major technology companies have chosen to build ultra-large-scale, high-energy-consuming data centers for large language model training. In Michigan, more than 20 towns within 50 miles of the "Stargate" supercomputing complex where OpenAI and Oracle are building have issued data center construction bans.
The public's resistance to data centers essentially stems from society's growing unease about the development of artificial intelligence: on the one hand, the public is worried about the impact of AI on jobs; on the other hand, they are afraid that data centers will consume a lot of water, push up residents' electricity prices, and damage the regional living environment. A Gallup poll of 1,000 American adults conducted in early March this year showed that 70% of Americans opposed the construction of new AI data centers near their homes.
Gallup data shows that 56% of Democrats strongly oppose the construction of local data centers, higher than 39% of Republicans. This issue has attracted widespread attention from both parties. In the left-wing camp, independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have proposed a national moratorium on new data center construction at the federal level (the probability of passing this bill is extremely low).
In the right-wing camp, the conservative organization "Humanity First" plans to launch a national anti-data center protest day in Texas, California, Florida and other states. One of the protest demands is concerns about the safety of artificial intelligence. Amy Kramer, the head of the organization, was once one of the core organizers of the Tea Party movement. She said that she began to notice the civil wave against data centers in various places in 2024: "I noticed that this protest was constantly fermenting, and I realized that a large-scale social controversy was taking place."
At present, most of the restrictive policies are temporary suspension orders. Such policy cycles usually last from 1 month to 1 year. Local governments use this to press the pause button on new projects to study and formulate long-term regulatory rules.
Some regions have also introduced permanent bans with no fixed period. More than ten regions in New Jersey have introduced such policies; some regions have tried to legislate a permanent ban on data center construction, but were eventually forced to withdraw due to legal proceedings. The town of Lordstown, Ohio, last fall issued an injunction against SoftBank's plan to build a Stargate data center equipment factory at the old General Motors plant here. Another data center developer immediately filed a lawsuit, and the local town eventually replaced the permanent injunction with a temporary suspension policy that can be extended multiple times.
Several state governments have also tried to temporarily suspend the construction of data centers across the state, but the implementation results have generally been poor. The New York State Assembly has passed a one-year data center construction moratorium bill, which is currently awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul's signature. The bill may be on hold until the end of this year; a similar bill passed by the Maine Assembly was vetoed by the governor this spring.
Some state legislators have taken a different approach and indirectly slowed down the expansion of computing infrastructure by canceling previous financial subsidies and tax relief policies for data center developers. Ohio, Illinois, and Arizona have all suspended relevant preferential policies this year.
Despite rising public opposition, many local politicians still regard data centers as the core driver of regional economic growth. Michigan stipulates that data center projects with an investment of more than $250 million and the creation of more than 30 jobs are exempt from the 6% sales and use tax, and the tax incentives are valid until 2050.
Relying on this tax benefit, Michigan has successfully launched a number of major data center projects. On June 1, Governor Gretchen Whitmer and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the "Stargate" Michigan base. The project is located in the town of Saline, an hour's drive from Detroit. Whitmer called the project the largest economic investment in Michigan's history and will bring 1,500 construction jobs, 450 full-time data center positions and 1,500 supporting jobs to the area.
Just before the groundbreaking ceremony, the Salin Town Government voted in September last year to reject the land use change application and refused to build a data center. The Stargate project team sued the town on the grounds of “exclusive zoning” in accordance with local Michigan law, and ultimately the project team won the case.
After surrounding towns witnessed this judicial tug-of-war and the official start of the project, more than 20 regions successively introduced moratorium policies on data center construction. Now, more than 50 local governments in Michigan have implemented relevant bans.
The game continues. In April, a Michigan state representative from a district adjacent to the Stargate project introduced a bill that would have limited the duration of temporary moratoriums on local data centers to six months, but the bill has not yet made any progress.