At a glance
- The longer ban failed on a 6-6 vote, with one member absent, after a five-and-a-half-hour debate.
- The 135-day pause is timed to a 90-day review of digital infrastructure's local impact that Mayor Paul Young commissioned at the start of October.
- Memphis is not a big data center market, but it hosts several xAI facilities, which DCD says have been rebranded as SpaceXAI.
Memphis City Council rejected an 18-month moratorium on new data centers and voted instead for a 135-day pause on new applications, Data Center Dynamics reported. The longer ban failed on a 6-6 vote, with one member absent, after a five-and-a-half-hour debate.
The 135-day pause is timed to a 90-day review of digital infrastructure's local impact that Mayor Paul Young commissioned at the start of October. DCD reported that the measure is intended to "develop clear, actionable recommendations for regulating large and hyperscale data centers in Memphis."
Memphis is not a big data center market, but it hosts several xAI facilities, which DCD says have been rebranded as SpaceXAI. Built over the past two years to power the Grok chatbot and sell cloud capacity to clients including Anthropic, the sites have drawn lawsuits from environmental and civil rights campaigners who claim the company violated its permits on gas turbine use.
Opponents of the longer ban said data center developers could move their tax revenue to other jurisdictions; one of Musk's data centers already sits across the state line in Mississippi. DCD reported that such pauses have become commonplace across US communities as opposition to AI infrastructure grows.
Council cut the proposed data center ban from 18 months to 135 days
Length of each measure, in days
Show as table
| Label | Value (days) |
|---|---|
| 18-month moratorium (rejected) | 540 days |
| Pause on new applications (adopted) | 135 days |
| Mayor's impact review | 90 days |
Reported by the Data centers & fiber desk from Data Center Dynamics and Action News 5. Published . Corrections