New York Becomes First State To Impose Data Center Moratorium (reuters.com) 44
New York has become the first U.S. state to impose a moratorium on large new data centers, pausing construction for one year over concerns that AI-driven data center growth is raising utility bills, straining water supplies, and burdening communities. "As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it's my responsibility to take action and lead," said New York Governor Kathy Hochul. She will also pursue legislation to repeal sales tax exemptions for large data centers, Hochul added. Reuters reports: The construction ban will apply to data centers that use 50 megawatts or more of power, officials in the governor's office said. During the moratorium, the state's Department of Environmental Conservation will not issue any discretionary permits not already deemed complete, the governor's office said. Instead, Hochul directed state officials to develop a Generic Environmental Impact Statement to ensure that new data centers coming online are held to "consistent standards," as well as examine the potential environmental impacts of the construction and operation of data centers in the state. The ban will be lifted once the state finalizes those standards, according to Hochul's office.
We don't need anymore datacenters world wide (Score:2)
Re: We don't need anymore datacenters world wide (Score:2)
Humans create a lot of slop that needs to be stored in data centers too. Do people really need to take so many pictures?
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Humans create a lot of slop that needs to be stored in data centers too. Do people really need to take so many pictures?
You could delete all of that and AI companies would still need/want nearly as many new data centers. Besides, pictures are real things, made by people, capturing a moment in time - what else is as deserving of that space? Meanwhile, a single tiktok can be 20mb-500mb, while the average iPhone photo is 3-4mb (and uploads thereof are usually MUCH smaller).
Re: We don't need anymore datacenters world wide (Score:2)
Sure, but putting storage online is cheaper both initially and ongoing than putting a bunch of GPGPU online, and in both power consumption and dollars. It can take up just as much space but use an order of magnitude less electricity, therefore be quieter, and have no one care
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Grandmas stupid baby photo collection create more positive utility for humans than a petabyte of stupid slop images of crayfish aranged into a jesus face ever will.
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...all these "new" data centers are storage for slop.
I'm sorry, your expertise on this comes from...what exactly?
I have no idea how many data centers we need. I've never run the numbers. I wouldn't know what numbers to run. I doubt you have either.
You know who I bet has run the numbers and thinks they can sell a data center's worth of service to willing customers? The person about to write the $10 billion check to build one.
A data center in NY (Score:1)
Re:A data center in NY (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I guess that it's pretty easy to pass a data center ban in a state where nobody really wants to build a data center. The real estate in New York is too expensive for building a data center, and the electricity is too expensive to run it and the labor too expensive to build it. And even if you were willing to pay that, the taxes are going to be high and the environmental regulations will be a pain.
Now, if you were able to pass a data center ban in a state like Virginia or Texas... THAT would be meaningful.
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Isn't New York not a state located quite close to the Canadian border? Would that not be a good location for energy-availability and -security? Building is something you do once. Having access to power from US and Canada, will make for a continuous functioning datacenter. Which is a quite important factor in profitable exploitation of such any datacenter.
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Yeah, I guess that it's pretty easy to pass a data center ban in a state where nobody really wants to build a data center. The real estate in New York is too expensive for building a data center, and the electricity is too expensive to run it and the labor too expensive to build it.
NYS is actually a large state, with a number of rural communities (and lots of cheap empty space). And being near the St. Lawrence river and its hydroelectric plants could, in theory, provide cheaper power. That is not to say one cannot do better elsewhere (especially since some states are willing to give long term tax abatements). And it is not as if a few organizations have not recently built (or in various stages of building) a few fabs in the upstate region which consume upwards of a few hundred mega
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Yeah, I guess that it's pretty easy to pass a data center ban in a state where nobody really wants to build a data center. The real estate in New York is too expensive for building a data center, and the electricity is too expensive to run it
I'm sure real estate in upstate New York is relatively reasonable. It's mostly still farmland and forests.
Thing is, the people who want to build data centers have no doubt figured that all in. Given the budget for a data center, I'm not sure the land cost is a significant issue. Electricity is something else, which is why people are hot to trot to build a dedicated power plant colocated with the compute.
Curious (Score:5, Interesting)
How charging EVs will break the power grid but operating gigawatt slop datacenters is essential?
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Your curiosity may get you deported.
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don't worry. They'll come for you.
Re:Curious (Score:4, Insightful)
EVs are at least manageable, since most people don't need to charge at a specific time. In the UK we have a system where you get a discount if you let the electricity supplier decide when charging happens. You tell them how much charge you need and by what time.
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blocking does not work.
Also: stop slopping if you want to be able to afford any computer.
Won't it have popped by a year from now? (Score:1)
If the governor wants New Yorkers to be able to get cheap RAM at AI bankruptcy auctions, shouldn't they build the datacenters now?
If you wait a year to give permission, the bubble will have popped long before any hardware ever gets shipped, so the bankruptcy auction won't have anything to sell.
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If you wait a year to give permission, the bubble will have popped long before any hardware ever gets shipped, so the bankruptcy auction won't have anything to sell.
It just moves the source of the sales -- if the datacenter (AI or not) bubble pops, then all the chip-fab companies that are doubling down on RAM production for these datacenters will have production capacity they no longer have a market for at inflated prices, so rather than have to take a complete writeoff on their expanded production lines, they'll likely start pushing RAM at fire-sale prices in order to recover at least some of the money they'd poured into new production lines in the "line goes up" beli
Praise be (Score:3, Interesting)
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Now answer that same one for your orange hero trump and remind me which one has implemented more communism.
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It's a great experiment that terrifies republicans. If the mayor fails then they can claim how awful his woke commie policies were. If he succeeds then they have bigger problems. There have been a number of democratic socialist politicians in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It's a great experiment that terrifies republicans. If the mayor fails then they can claim how awful his woke commie policies were. If he succeeds then they have bigger problems. There have been a number of democratic socialist politicians in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No need to be terrified, this is how it's supposed to work. Different States trying different things as the incubators of Democracy. Competing for resources like citizens and businesses. If NYC's mayor pulls it off they will attract more resources. If he doesn't well then those resources will move to other States and NYC will have a bad time. I've read history, and considering how horribly things like price controls have worked in the past, instead of terrified, I'm mostly thankful to NYC and CA for se
Re:Praise be (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite electing a communist mayor in their largest city,
Gosh a Mayor who isn't a drooling right wing nutjob actually representing what people, not coprs want? He must be out to sap and impurify your precious bodily fluid.
As a distant observer, I also like his style. Arseholes tried to block a bike lane, so he made it twice as big. Noice.
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More Mayors and Governors from both sides of the aisle should handle stuff this way.
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Funny how it apparently takes a communist to balance the budget, while still delivering on the socialist policies he promised.
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>Despite electing a communist mayor i
You have absolutely no idea what the word "communist" actually means.
AI datacenters are differnet (Score:2)
Lots of comments about all of the open space in current DCs. Do those current DCs support the kind of loads an density that AI wants to require? Maybe not.
I'm not advocating for more datacenters and certainly not advocating for AI. But an AI datacenter needs much higher power density and a traditional DC. AI wants 2x to 10x the power density.
https://techplustrends.com/pow... [techplustrends.com]
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Lots of comments about all of the open space in current DCs. Do those current DCs support the kind of loads an density that AI wants to require?
I have spent time inside a number of datacenters (from smaller, to very large). Most do not have the power (or cooling) capacity to be good locations for the newer AI racks (some existing buildings may not even have the floor loading capacity (heavy racks need serious floor support)). Sure, some could be retrofitted, but it is probably going to be cheaper to build new than gut an existing building and replace all the power and cooling infrastructure. And that would presume that the current location is vi
Debatable rationale (Score:2)
Okay... Well, you can pass a law saying datacenters have to bear the full cost of the infrastructure they need, that takes care of utility bills. I'm not sure what natural resources she's talking about, the aforementioned law would cover any natural gas and water use, so what's left? These don't pollute the air, and there i
New Jersey and Connecticut are close enough (Score:2)
Well that's easy. (Score:2)
Build two 49 MW centers, 6 months and 6 miles apart.
Drug dealers solved the money laundering casino reporting threshold problem decades ago.
China detected a bubble and acted (Score:2)
Earlier this year China's planners saw a bubble develop as money was being poured in to data centre construction. In response, China added a Federal layer of planning approval above provincial government planning approval.
The Federal layer heavily favours planning approval for data centres that have easy access to abundant cheap energy - not just in a contract price sense, but in terms of a direct connection to nearby physical generation capacity. That pretty much factors down to solar+wind=>battery=
no more (Score:2)
No more data centers. No more fossil fuels. Pretty soon, no more AC, just like Europe. Also, plenty more 3rd world immigrants, just like Europe.