New York lawmakers are advancing a proposal to pause approvals for new data centres in the state for the next three years and ninety days so regulators can assess the impact on water, electricity and gas usage. The move would align New York with Georgia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Vermont and Virginia, which have already taken similar steps according to Wired, while Florida is also considering legislation targeting the rapid expansion of data centre infrastructure.
New York state has at least 133 data centres, with most being located in New York City and Buffalo, followed by Albany and Long Island, which according to National Grid New York President Sally Librera will see the electricity demand jump to 10 GW over the next five years. Lawmakers and utilities are increasingly concerned that the current pace of construction could outstrip available capacity, particularly as high density computing clusters for Artificial Intelligence and cloud services drive concentrated demand in specific regions.
Common among all the states is that the cost of electricity and other utilities have increased, with electricity prices by around 13 percent in 2025. Some of the states want the data centres to ‘pay their own way’, seeking to ensure operators cover the costs of grid upgrades and other infrastructure rather than shifting them onto ratepayers. However, considering the time it takes to build the infrastructure needed, this might end up being a problem with the current growth rate of new datacentres, and with an increasing number of US states considering moratoriums for new datacentres, the current Artificial Intelligence boom might have hit a snag that none of the companies involved can get around.
