New York Governor Katie Gokul signed an executive order on July 14 banning the construction of new data centers for artificial intelligence in the state for a year.
New York Governor Katie Gokul signed an executive order on July 14 banning the construction of new data centers for artificial intelligence in the state for a year.
She reported this to X.
The document prohibits issuing permits for the design of «hyperscale» data centers with a capacity of more than 50 MW, and also obliges local authorities to develop standards that will take into account environmental impacts, energy consumption, water use, and other factors during the construction of such facilities in the future.
AI data centers are reshaping our future.
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) July 14, 2026
No one gets to build that future by asking New Yorkers to sacrifice theirs.
Today, I’m taking action. pic.twitter.com/rNZCfdn1el
Gokul explained the decision by saying that no one has the right to build the «future» of AI by forcing New Yorkers to sacrifice their own.
The state legislature also passed a similar bill, but Gokul chose not to sign it, instead issuing her own gubernatorial order.
According to a June poll by the Siena Research Institute, 46% of New Yorkers would support a one-year moratorium on data center construction, while 21% consider such a decision a bad one.
The idea of such a moratorium is being discussed in more than a dozen US states. In Maine, a temporary ban on the construction of new AI data centers was even passed at the legislative level, but Democratic Governor Janet Mills vetoed it.
At the city level, a moratorium was first introduced in the small Californian city of Monterey Park, and a temporary ban is also in effect in Seattle, currently the largest US city to take such a step.
In June 2026, mayors from 41 cities across six continents signed a global data center pact that sets out the conditions under which data centers for artificial intelligence should be built. About half of the signatories are from US cities, including Seattle, Chicago, Miami, Phoenix, and Palo Alto; in total, the signatories represent more than 90 million people.
