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New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

reuters.com

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Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#121

Post by fra »

CrimsonRain wrote: post #118
whartung wrote: post #97

How are (can) datacenters be taxed? Mind, I don't know, but normally you put in a business, or factory, etc. the state can tax the economic output of the factory. The factory builds things, sells things, they tax the sales of those things. Local employees get salaries that can be taxed, etc. Of course, property taxes on the land and improvements. But how does that work with a datacenter? If I pay $5 for an EC2 instan…

Why do data centers need to be taxed separately? Why does the local community need their take from that economic activity? What are they even providing? Are they providing land, electricity, and hardware for free to the data center?

For two reasons: 1. They create externalities 2. They generate an economic flux that can be taxed

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#122

Post by coryrc »

enraged_camel wrote: post #115
coryrc wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is the second-biggest state. Where are they going to make major connections to -- the Great Prairie? There's a whole New Mexico-worth of sparse population between Dallas/Austin/San Antonio before you get to New Mexico itself, which you would then need to cross halfway before you hit a major population center. Enron fiasco put a local power company here in WA in insurmountable debt because they couldn't ship pow…

>> El Paso has "major" connections to New Mexico. El Paso is not part of the Texas grid (ERCOT): https://www.epa.gov/green-power-markets/us-grid-regions Neither are the panhandle nor the northeastern portion.

GGP didn't say ERCOT, they said "Texas". Which further demonstrates how ignorant it is to say there are "no major connections".

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#123

Post by ianm218 »

ASinclair wrote: post #100
bklosky wrote: post #68

Regardless of your personal feelings about AI, this is pretty clumsy regulation that will just cause Tiebout sorting away from NY. If there are negative externalities, tax 'em, use the proceeds for some feel-good social programming, and let the data center builders internalize the costs...

Why would people move to jurisdictions that are building AI datacenters? It seems like people would move away from them.

People move towards places with growing economic opportunities.

New York heavily restricts construction and infrastructure projects of all kinds. The tech and finance elite will stay here but normal people who are trying to make a decent living in construction and similar trades will end up following opportunities.

NYC population is declining after all [1] largely because the city would rather treat housing as a scarce resource for them to divy up than something to increase the supply of.

[1]. https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/new-york-city-population...

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#124

Post by oceanplexian »

measurablefunc wrote: post #87
orangedog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That happened in 2021 and we haven't had similar issues since. I haven't experienced a power grid failure since then.

According to Google, Texas currently has about 87GW of peak capacity & a data center production pipeline that will require 75-100GW. So the state will have to basically double its peak capacity to supply power to all those new data centers.

Clearly this is a problem, Texas being the one state notoriously known for not having any natural resources or energy production infrastructure.

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#125

Post by j16sdiz »

richwater wrote: post #37
buellerbueller wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Grid upgrades would have to happen no matter what. Data centers are just the catalyst and boogeyman at the moment. This utopia that everyone has about electric cars will never come to fruition without grid upgrades. This country has systematically underinvested and underdeveloped the electric grid for 50 years and now we are paying the price. It is a government failing.

We are taking about doubling or tripling the power consumption in some place in 2 or 3 years.

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#126

Post by verdverm »

weberer wrote: post #112
verdverm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sea water would have to be piped to places like Dallas, whereas much of Finland's people/data centers are closer to the shoreline. A solution that works in certain places does not generally work everywhere.

There's no need to build them in Dallas. Just keep them near the shoreline. The only reason you have so many data centers in North Jersey is so high frequency traders can make their calls 0.02ms before their competitors on the NYSE. For an average user, the 1ms ping between Dallas and Corpus Christi is not a problem.

They are many already planned/under construction/built/expanding, there are also wildfires and hurricanes to consider.

Its easy to offer hypothetical solutions for a far when details are amis. It's another thing to deal with local politics

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#127

Post by measurablefunc »

pembrook wrote: post #102
measurablefunc wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Google, Texas currently has about 87GW of peak capacity & a data center production pipeline that will require 75-100GW. So the state will have to basically double its peak capacity to supply power to all those new data centers.

And they will, because Texas allows building. Question, how do you think the entire infrastructure around you that you’ve taken for granted your whole life was built? If you were asked, would you have voted to allow the building of your own home, the infrastructure and roads around it, and the businesses whose tax revenue funds your local municipality you suddenly are so concerned about? One of the most bizarre contr…

Then you should move to Texas. Seems like that would solve whatever issue you have w/ lack of new buildings or whatever you're concerned about.

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#129

Post by victorbjorklund »

whartung wrote: post #97

How are (can) datacenters be taxed? Mind, I don't know, but normally you put in a business, or factory, etc. the state can tax the economic output of the factory. The factory builds things, sells things, they tax the sales of those things. Local employees get salaries that can be taxed, etc. Of course, property taxes on the land and improvements. But how does that work with a datacenter? If I pay $5 for an EC2 instan…

If the factory in Tennessee is its own legal entity and the sales office is in another (it’s a group) then yes transfer pricing is used where the goal is to use the market price of an arm length distance (what would you pay for the factory/data center if it was someone unrelated to you) and if same company (guess more uncommon) you use formulas to allocate where value is created and where taxes should be paid.

Re: New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium

#130

Post by jbm »

CrimsonRain wrote: post #118
whartung wrote: post #97

How are (can) datacenters be taxed? Mind, I don't know, but normally you put in a business, or factory, etc. the state can tax the economic output of the factory. The factory builds things, sells things, they tax the sales of those things. Local employees get salaries that can be taxed, etc. Of course, property taxes on the land and improvements. But how does that work with a datacenter? If I pay $5 for an EC2 instan…

Why do data centers need to be taxed separately? Why does the local community need their take from that economic activity? What are they even providing? Are they providing land, electricity, and hardware for free to the data center?

If human activity is taxed, AI activity will be taxed. It's just inevitable. It will be taxed at multiple levels until we figure out the right level to do so. Some of it will be detrimental to AI development but that's normal - in Canada we had a hidden manufacturing sales tax until the 80s which made exports more expensive.

A technology that puts X% of people out of work is going to be taxed.

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