"But it is Georgia that is quickly becoming ground zero in the fight against untrammelled growth of datacenters which are notorious for using huge amounts of energy and water as they power the emerging industry of artificial intelligence. The Georgia bill seeks to halt all such projects until March of next year to allow state, county and municipal-level officials time to set necessary policies for regulating datacenters which permanently alter the landscape of our state, said bill sponsor state Democratic legislator Ruwa Romman."
"It comes at a time when Georgia's public service commission the agency that oversees utility company Georgia Power just last month approved a plan to provide 10 additional gigawatts of energy in the coming years. It was the largest amount of electricity sought for a multi-year plan in the commission's history, was driven by datacenters and will mostly be supplied by fossil fuels."
State lawmakers in Georgia, Maryland and Oklahoma have introduced proposals for statewide moratoriums on new datacenters. A Georgia bill would pause new datacenter projects until March to give state, county and municipal officials time to adopt regulatory policies. Datacenters consume large amounts of energy and water to support artificial intelligence workloads. Georgia's public service commission recently approved a plan to add 10 gigawatts of generation, driven largely by datacenter demand and expected to be mostly supplied by fossil fuels. The Atlanta metro led the nation in datacenter construction in 2024. At least 10 Georgia municipalities and municipalities in roughly 14 states have enacted local moratoriums, including Roswell, according to Tech Policy Press.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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