New York to impose the country's first moratorium on data centers

New York Governor Hochul signed the country's first statewide moratorium on new data center construction, immediately halting pending projects including a proposed facility in Genesee County. The moratorium freezes approvals while the state assesses energy, water, and infrastructure impacts of data center expansion. If you're building AI infrastructure or need compute capacity in the Northeast, New York just went dark—but this opens the door to Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Virginia, where your competitors now can't build. Use the next 18 months to lock land and power contracts before the rest of the country copies Hochul's playbook.