Backlash to data centers drives Maine toward a statewide pause

Maine’s legislature has passed the nation’s first statewide moratorium on energy-hungry data centers.

It's an expansion of political opposition to tech giants’ massive artificial intelligence data centers, which are stoking fears about blackouts, rising energy bills and voracious water needs.

Bills have been introduced in at least a dozen states, as increasingly stiff backlash at the local level is migrating upward into legislatures.

Tech giants and the data centers they are building have high-level support from the Trump administration and many governors.

They say the centers are essential to winning the artificial intelligence race against China.