The mayor is predicted to signal the moratorium quickly.
The Seattle Metropolis Council has unanimously accredited a moratorium on the development of latest giant AI data centers for one yr. Mayor Katie Wilson has but to signal it, however in accordance with the Seattle Times, she was trying ahead to doing so. Wilson had vocally supported a ban after the Occasions reported again in April that 5 giant knowledge heart challenge proposals within the metropolis would devour as much as a 3rd of Seattle’s present demand for electrical energy. The town’s residents additionally raised considerations concerning the facilities’ potential water utilization and noise air pollution.
Seattle’s better metropolitan space serves as house to Microsoft, whereas Amazon’s headquarters is within the metropolis itself. Google and Meta have places of work within the metropolis, as effectively. As GeekWire notes, nonetheless, the tech giants do not truly function knowledge facilities inside Seattle, so the moratorium will principally have an effect on builders and suppliers.
The moratorium places a brief ban on the event of huge knowledge facilities that use greater than 20 megavolt-amperes of power, which may energy hundreds of houses. It might be prolonged for six extra months. As well as, the council accredited a invoice that requires the town to review the impacts of AI knowledge facilities on Seattle’s electrical energy and water utilization, utility charges, land use, native jobs and public well being to assemble the knowledge wanted for everlasting rules.
One council member added an modification to the payments, differentiating “conventional knowledge facilities” from AI “hyperscale” services. As soon as Mayor Wilson indicators the moratorium, Seattle will be part of the rising record of cities and counties which have put both a brief or everlasting ban on new knowledge facilities, together with Denver, New Orleans and Minneapolis.
GeekWire says greater than 50 individuals testified at the latest council assembly, together with members of the Amazon Workers for Local weather Justice. They reportedly urged the council so as to add renewable power necessities and labor protections to the town’s rules. The members additionally reportedly known as for the federal government to place a cease to the business’s plans “to construct out as a lot compute capability as they will, as quick as they will, earlier than rules can catch up.”
