Legislators address AI data center concerns at a Zanesville event

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The Zanesville-Muskingum County Chamber of Commerce held their annual Legislative Breakfast on Friday and AI data centers were a popular topic of conversation.

These data centers have become a controversial topic given their water demans, land usage, and strain on the electrical grid that they can produce. Legislators like U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson say that they’ve heard the concerns and have addressed the primary concern of power sustainability.

“These data centers are going to have to find their own power source. We cannot put that on the backs of our constituents,” Balderson said.

Federal regulations for independant power generation at the data centers have been streamlined through the Securing Reliable Power for Advanced Technologies Act. At the state level, House Bill 15 allows for behind the meter generation to be implemented after being filed with the public utilities commission.

“It just paves the way and legislatively clears the way for these large companies, whether it’s, you know, Intel or a data center, to actually have on-site generation so that they’re not drawing off the grid,” State Sen. Al Landis said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, it’s going to take time but legislatively we’ve cleared the way.”

Ohio State Representative Adam Holmes says water consumption is being looked at to understand their impact and plan for creating the proper oversight required.