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300-plus local data center bans have only delayed just three US projects — bans 'much more bark than bite,' only 2.3 gigawatts of data centers are held up, versus 38 gigawatts expected online in 2027 A project-by-project audit finds most moratoriums miss the site, the permit, or the timeline. More than 300 local data center construction moratoriums haven’t had a massive impact on planned buildouts, with only three projects at about 2.3 out of 21 gigawatts (GW) of data centers in moratorium areas likely to be delayed, with a total of 38 GW projected to come online next year, SemiAnalysis shared on X. Per-project audits of the moratoriums indicate that they tend to miss the site, the permit, or the timeline. The crux of the report is that, while everyone thinks the moratoriums are killing the U.S. buildout, its forecast has “barely moved over the last 12 months.” This forecast includes 38 GW of U.S. data center IT capacity in 2027, which is more than double that of 2026. Of that, 22 GW is under vertical construction, and the other 16 GW is mostly financed, with site work being done. The enacted local moratoriums cover about 20 GW with only about 1.5 GW of it delayed; New York’s pause adds 0.8 GW more. “We think moratoriums COULD delay the buildout, but they just aren’t yet at scale.” The firm defines a moratorium as a “temporary legal pause,” and almost always a “freeze on accepting new applications.” More than 400 local instruments are tracked across 17 states, the enacted ones including a few permanent zoning bans, as of September. Four states acted in under two months this summer: New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Oregon. To test each active restriction against the records of thousands of projects, the firm’s analysts worked alongside “an army of state-of-the-art research agents.” Several reasons are given for moratorium ineffectiveness, starting with the fact that they don’t revoke existing approvals. Short ones may expire before later projects need approval, and litigation or equipment lead times may already set the schedule. A moratorium moves the delivery date only if every condition holds, including that it reaches the parcel, is in force, overlaps the timeline, and covers the use in a way the project can’t work around. Capacity already under construction or fully permitted is also out of reach. For example, Michigan has 45 enacted moratoriums but effectively zero pipeline exposure, and a Google campus there sits on industrial land already zoned for data processing. The firm says SpaceX’s planned data center in Brownsville, Texas, is on land the city removed from its limits and thus out of reach of the city’s moratorium. For a moratorium that did work, a township adopted a pause before NorthPoint, in Pennsylvania, filed for its special exception, with local approval pushed to next year. The company is still pursuing it. The 2.3 GW figure is also incomplete, as it leaves out the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) pause. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told the TCEQ to issue no permits for data center projects. Law firm Bracewell says this applies whether a project is in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’s (ERCOT) queue or not, and expects the pause to last until ERCOT finishes its review in mid-December. Pauses like the TCEQ’s, and how they play out, could impact buildout forecasts. The post quotes another by The Economist’s Archie Hall, from a trip that covers Michigan and Ohio, with the reporter stating that data center moratoriums are “much more bark than bite” for the time being. He puts the bigger risk at deterring newer projects, though he guesses that affects where data centers end up more than whether they get built. His impression is that politics also plays a role, and according to the firm’s poll in August, more Americans have a negative rather than positive impression of data centers. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. The analysis concludes that moratoriums would need to be “materially more widespread and restrictive” to delay the buildout. On the firm’s weekly podcast last month, Jeremie Eliahou Ontiveros, one of the report’s authors, said the firm would be worried by a strict, state-level moratorium that blocked even off-grid projects, citing Texas as an example. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, in addition to Abbott, also found ways to bypass their legislatures for pauses they control and can revoke. The next move to watch is the TCEQ’s compliance report to Abbott’s office, due Monday. Follow Tom’s Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Shane Downing is a Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering consumer storage, PC hardware, and AI. - bill001g This all really doesn't matter. They are still talking about the buildings and power plants. All this stuff doesn't matter if you can not buy servers to place into the buildings. There are many data centers already built that are on waiting list for stuff like memory that is sold out for more than a year in the future. What I don't understand is whatever company is spending the huge money to create these buildings does not also know this. The chip makers are not increasing their capacity so this backlog is just going to increase. That is a lot of money that they likely borrowed to have not actually getting any return on investment for many years in the future. This almost seems like gambling addicts making these "investments" Reply - alan.campbell99 I am highly skeptical that 38GW will come online in 2027, these stupid things are taking 2-3 years to build and that's probably with ideal situations regarding resource supply , labour and power. There's a doom-loop wrt to costs too because the more chip/server orders are being placed the more costs of RAM etc go up. Abeline still isn't complete and it started in, what, 2024? So in the end it might not be the moratoriums that have a negative effect here but economics. Got to wonder too about the alleged demand when we're seeing the neoclouds like Coreweave getting very wobbly now. Reply
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