An ordinance temporarily pausing permits for new or expanded data centers in Birmingham is headed to committee after the City Council heard from the public during a Tuesday hearing.
“We want to make sure we get this right on the front end. That’s why I feel it’s important for us to follow the established guidelines and discuss this further in the Planning and Zoning Committee,” Councilor Darrell O’Quinn said. “I really appreciated the public comments we received today, especially the one saying we need to use a ‘scalpel and not a sledgehammer’ approach when dealing with these data centers. On the one hand, we know they are vital for industry and business and not all of them are the same. Residents are rightfully concerned about this issue and our goal is to get in front of this from a regulatory perspective. This temporary suspension will allow our city staff to do that.”
As the use of artificial intelligence and cloud computing have proliferated, so has the need for ever-larger data centers. These new, massive server warehouses are often called hyperscale centers, and they use substantial energy resources…