More than 60 environmental, labor and community organizations called on Gov. Mikie Sherrill to impose a moratorium on new data centers that use at least 20 megawatts of electricity until stronger regulations are put in place.
“A 20-megawatt data center uses as much electricity as all the homes in Montclair,” the groups wrote. “But little is being done at the state level to stop the unchecked growth of data centers and the increase in electric rates they say will come with it.”
“A moratorium is also needed to protect the environment and the health and well-being of New Jersey residents,” said the letter, which was signed on Thursday.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
The groups that signed the letter include the Pinelands Alliance, the ACLU, the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, The Nature Conservancy and NY/NJ Baykeeper.
Advocates also said they plan to deliver a petition signed by thousands of residents supporting the pause of data center construction.
The request comes as fights over AI data centers continue spreading across the country. Some residents have raised concerns that the large data centers that supply computing power for artificial intelligence are responsible for rising electric bills, excessive water use and constant noise.
At least 14 other states are considering moratoriums or restrictions tied to data center growth, though none have yet been signed into law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Data centers are large buildings filled with servers and computer systems that process and store digital information. Massive facilities built for artificial intelligence can consume as much electricity as tens of thousands of homes and use millions of gallons of water to cool their systems.
New Jersey is home to about 80 facilities, most concentrated in the northern half of the state, according to DataCenterMap, an industry data tracking website. Only a fraction are currently used for AI, but demand is expected to rapidly increase.
By 2030, U.S. demand for data center capacity driven largely by artificial intelligence could more than triple.
State environmental groups argue the rapid expansion could worsen greenhouse gas emissions, strain water supplies and increase pollution. They also say artificial intelligence data centers are driving up electric bills in New Jersey.
Industry representatives have pushed back on those claims, arguing large-scale data centers help pay for power grid upgrades and bring major economic benefits to the state.
Data centers supported more than 96,000 jobs and contributed more than $17 billion to New Jersey’s economy in 2023, according to the Data Center Coalition, a national trade group representing the industry.
“Data centers are the essential digital infrastructure behind every online purchase, telehealth appointment, online news article, and digital classroom,” Khara Boender, director of state policy for the Coalition, said in a statement to NJ.com last month.
Still, opposition to the industry has continued to grow, with several New Jersey towns already passing local bans and restrictions on future data centers.
Monroe Township in Gloucester County and Andover Township in Sussex County are among the communities that have moved to pass local bans after residents protested zoning changes they feared could pave the way for data centers in their communities.
In Vineland, one of the largest AI data centers on the East Coast is already under construction. The facility is slated to span about 2.6 million square feet and provide artificial intelligence computing power to Microsoft through a $17 billion agreement. Residents living nearby have complained about a constant humming noise they say has disrupted their sleep.
Amid the backlash, New Jersey lawmakers are trying to regulate the industry.
At least five bills moving through the state Legislature would place new restrictions on large-scale data centers, including measures aimed at limiting how much residents pay to power the facilities. The bills would also require detailed reporting on water and energy use and ban nondisclosure agreements tied to projects. Those measures would have to pass the Legislature and be signed by the governor to become law.
New Jersey has also aggressively courted AI companies. In 2024, former Gov. Phil Murphy created the state’s first tax incentive program targeting artificial intelligence projects and large-scale data centers. The first major award went to CoreWeave, a Livingston -based cloud computing company that received $250 million in tax credits last year.
CoreWeave is scheduled to open a nearly 400,000-square-foot data center in Kenilworth in Union County on the site of a former pharmaceutical company headquarters.
The environmental groups calling for a moratorium said a statewide pause on projects would give lawmakers time to study the industry’s long-term impacts and put statewide protections in place.
“Taking a measured pause now will help ensure that decisions made today do not create irreversible harm tomorrow,” the groups wrote in the letter.
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