The mayor is predicted to signal the moratorium quickly.
The Seattle Metropolis Council has unanimously authorised a moratorium on the development of recent massive AI knowledge facilities for one 12 months. Mayor Katie Wilson has but to signal it, however based on the Seattle Occasions, she was trying ahead to doing so. Wilson had vocally supported a ban after the Occasions reported again in April that 5 massive knowledge middle undertaking proposals within the metropolis would eat as much as a 3rd of Seattle’s present demand for electrical energy. The town’s residents additionally raised issues concerning the facilities’ potential water utilization and noise air pollution.
Seattle’s higher metropolitan space serves as dwelling to Microsoft, whereas Amazon’s headquarters is within the metropolis itself. Google and Meta have places of work within the metropolis, as properly. As GeekWire notes, nonetheless, the tech giants do not really 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 vitality, which might energy 1000’s of houses. It may very well be prolonged for six extra months. As well as, the council authorised a invoice that requires the town to check 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 data wanted for everlasting rules.
One council member added an modification to the payments, differentiating “conventional knowledge facilities” from AI “hyperscale” amenities. As soon as Mayor Wilson indicators the moratorium, Seattle will be part of the rising checklist 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 folks testified at the newest council assembly, together with members of the Amazon Workers for Local weather Justice. They reportedly urged the council so as to add renewable vitality necessities and labor protections to the town’s rules. The members additionally reportedly referred to 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.”
