A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new datacenters in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.
I honestly don’t think we need a moratorium on new datacenters. However, local governments should stop cutting datacenter operators deals. They should not get any tax breaks that other businesses do not get, and local utilities should be able to charge them more for their power and water.
Use the datacenters to subsidize the rest of us These companies have the money, after all.
And while a datacenter might employ lots of people while it’s being constructed, once it is running it doesn’t take a big staff to operate at all. If a local government wants to create jobs, there are much better ways to do it.