‘This is Seattle’s position on AI’: City Council votes unanimously to stop big data centers

The city that gave the world cloud computing recently hit a snag in the machines that power it.

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to impose a one-year emergency moratorium on large data centers within city limits, responding to concerns about the effects of AI on the city’s electrical grid, water supply, utility rates, and the economy.

The decision will go into effect as soon as Mayor Katie Wilson signs it, temporarily halting projects such as many data centers that companies have approached Seattle City Light about building in the city. Those projects reportedly had a combined peak demand equal to a third of Seattle’s daily energy use.

“This is Seattle’s position on AI and data centers,” said Council member Debora Juarez, who sponsored the council’s resolution on the data center policy. He thrilled the audience at the conference when he said he would stop AI and the data center entirely if he could.

It’s a big statement in a region that’s home to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, and the engineering centers of Google, Oracle, Meta and other companies are collectively spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers around the world to meet AI demand.

The decision places Seattle among the largest US cities to stop industrialization, joining Minneapolis, Denver, Baltimore, and Indianapolis in the wave of local backsliding.

The council approved two measures: an ordinance halting applications for data centers with electrical power greater than 20 megavolt-amperes — enough power for thousands of homes — and a resolution requiring the city to assess their impacts as a precursor to permanent regulations.

The vote followed weeks of mounting public pressure. More than 50 people testified Tuesday, and none spoke on behalf of the data centers. Many have argued that the moratorium does not go far enough, calling for a permanent ban. Councilors said they received more than 98,000 emails on the matter.

Some of the most striking evidence comes from within the industry.

Members of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, who also testified at two meetings last week, urged the council to add requirements for renewable energy and worker protections, and called for an end to what one AECJ member called the industry’s race to “build as much computing capacity as possible, as quickly as possible, before regulations reach.”

“It’s good to see this council choosing to empower ordinary people and workers over those they see as expendable,” said Srija Nagireddy, a member of the AECJ, referring to layoffs this year at Amazon and Meta amid record gains.

Councilor Bob Kettle offered the closest thing to the protection of the facilities, distinguishing hyperscale projects from what he called “traditional data centers” – including one city that he said burned buildings close to half and supports the city’s first responders. His amendment to the resolution, which was adopted unanimously, specified that AI is driving the need for “hyperscale” centers, and added government reliance, health care, and education to existing data centers on the city’s reading list.

Notably, neither Amazon nor Microsoft operate data centers in Seattle itself. Kettle pointed out during the meeting that Amazon’s facilities are located in Oregon, while Microsoft’s data center in the state is located in Quincy, a city in central Washington that has been transformed by cheap hydroelectric power on the Columbia River. That means the immediate impact of the shutdown falls on data center developers rather than technology giants.

The law exempts about 30 small data centers already operating in Seattle, allowing each to be expanded by up to an additional 20 megavolt-amperes, the same amount as the limit for setting up new centers.

Mayor Wilson, who first floated the idea of ​​suspending the law in April, is expected to sign the legislation. City departments will then develop permanent regulations for the data center, with the zoning ordinance expected to reach council in early 2027.

The fate of one project — Digital Realty’s proposed site at 301 Virginia St., filed 11 days before the vote — remains unclear. Whether a stay of an application can stop an application that is already in progress is likely to be a question for the authorities and the courts.