🇺🇸More than 150 localities enacted data-center bans during July; over 500 restrictions were active by early August.

More than 150 U.S. towns and counties reportedly adopted temporary or permanent data-center bans in July alone. Some of the restrictions were approved through emergency meetings and accelerated votes.

By early August, the number of active data-center bans nationwide had exceeded 500. The same tracking effort counted only slightly more than 300 restrictions when it first went online at the end of June.

Residents cited higher household electricity costs, consumption of scarce water resources, and noise as concerns. Project supporters argued that data centers can create employment, attract investment, and improve infrastructure in rural and industrial areas, but the source said those arguments had not stopped the continued adoption of restrictions.

The report identified Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI as companies relying on data-center expansion to increase computing capacity. It did not quantify the capacity affected by the bans or identify how many proposed projects had been cancelled.