Trump rails against New York’s statewide datacenter moratorium

Donald Trump railed against the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, for pausing the construction of large new datacenters, the resource-intensive facilities that power artificial intelligence.

New York became the first US state to enact a moratorium on new datacenters on Tuesday, when Hochul signed an executive order mandating a one-year statewide pause on so-called “hyperscale” datacenters.

“New York state has made a terrible decision,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump said Hochul had implemented the one-year ban for purely political reasons and should scrap the policy “IMMEDIATELY”.

“One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers. They are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built,” Trump wrote.

The order, which is the first of its kind to be enacted in the US, directs state regulators to create regulatory standards to address the environmental impacts of these big projects.

“This pause will remain in place for up to one year while New York establishes the strongest possible framework to protect our community’s guardrails to reduce the risk to our energy grid, minimize land disruption, noise pollution and protect our national resources, especially our water supply,” Hochul said at a press conference.

The president has pursued a deregulatory agenda with regards to AI during his second term, though he said Wednesday that datacenters should pay for their own water and power rather than accepting tax breaks, as have been offered in the past.

“Both the Taxes and the Jobs amount to LIQUID GOLD! All of this Income, and other Benefits, will be going to Red States, and some Blue, where Data Centers are sought as Cash Cows, with Lower Taxes and Record Setting Jobs,” he wrote, adding that datacenters constituted “tremendous WINS” for “states that were lucky enough to get them”. He said the “radical left democrats” would cause the US to “lose Data Centers and AI” to China.

The appetite for datacenter moratoriums is growing nationally as anger builds over the facilities’ effects on energy prices and local environments. Almost three-quarters of Americans oppose a datacenter being built near their homes, according to a new Heatmap poll.

More than a dozen states have considered moratoria in response to residents’ fears about the potential costs of living next to datacenters, especially higher utility bills and negative environmental effects. Seattle approved a one-year ban on datacenter development in June, becoming the largest city to do so.

Later on Wednesday, Trump was scheduled to headline a defense summit at the US army war college, where he was expected to tout large investments in battlefield technology.

Sanya Mansoor contributed reporting