Fort Worth City Council calls for pause on data centers
Fort Worth residents and City Council members are pushing for a temporary moratorium on data center construction to allow time for new regulations, despite NVIDIA breaking ground on a new AI factory in the city. NVIDIA's CEO emphasized the new factory's low water usage and high energy efficiency. The City Council is set to vote on the moratorium on August 11.
NVIDIA recently broke ground on an "AI factory" in Fort Worth, Texas, marking a $700 million investment and creating 800 new jobs. This facility will construct AI supercomputers, a process previously done overseas.
Simultaneously, Fort Worth residents and five City Council members have expressed concerns over the rapid expansion of data centers in the area. Council members signed a letter calling for a temporary moratorium on data center construction to allow the city to develop appropriate regulations.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang addressed concerns about data center resource consumption, stating that the new factory's liquid cooling technology ensures extremely low water usage and high energy efficiency. Fort Worth City Manager Jay Chapa clarified that the proposed moratorium is not against data centers themselves, but rather to establish a framework for future development, balancing growth with community planning and leveraging data centers for the future tax base.
The Fort Worth City Council is scheduled to vote on adopting the data center moratorium on August 11, which, if passed, would provide a window for drafting new guidelines for data centers.