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US NEWS 
By Greg Ryan and Mark Chediak
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey announced major restrictions on data center development, including a requirement that companies procure their own renewable energy supply.
Healey, who is seeking reelection in November, issued an executive order Tuesday mandating that developers invest in their own clean energy generation and obtain local approval before seeking state construction permits, a significant hurdle to additional development. If a developer fails to use renewable energy to meet its electricity needs, it must pay into a new fund that would benefit Massachusetts ratepayers, according to Healey’s order.
Several other US states including New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have either paused or placed new limits on data center development in the face of local backlash. States are also moving to require developers to pay for the power and infrastructure needed to operate their massive computing loads. Artificial intelligence data centers have become a top issue in this year’s midterm elections amid concerns that they’re boosting electricity bills, overwhelming the grid, straining water supplies and threatening jobs.
Healey’s requirement for companies to source their own clean energy supply appears to be unique, though other states are considering such a mandate. With its high energy and real estate costs, Massachusetts has seen far less data center investment than other parts of the country. The state wants to act now before interest picks up, Healey said at a press conference in Boston on Tuesday.
“We can’t have data centers coming in and taking energy away from the rest of us,” she said.
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The restrictions apply to data centers with a peak electricity demand that exceeds 25 megawatts. While Massachusetts has sought to build up renewable energy including offshore wind farms, development progress has been imperiled by President Donald Trump’s campaign against the technology.
Similar guardrails ordered by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro last month require data center developers to bring their own power and that “an increasingly significant portion” comes from clean energy sources such as solar, advanced nuclear and battery storage.
US data center power demand is forecast to triple by 2035, according to BloombergNEF. The expected rapid increase in electricity needs has triggered a rush to build new power supplies. That has given a boost to solar and batteries, which can be deployed more quickly than natural gas generators and nuclear power plants.
Stricter oversight of data center construction has attracted rare bipartisan support. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican and longtime champion of data centers, has ordered a pause while the state audits new projects. In Massachusetts, Healey’s Republican opponent in the governor’s race, former medical device executive Michael Minogue, said the state shouldn’t seek to attract data center development. Existing facilities should be required “to provide energy support to the community and water purification in their operations,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
In June, Healey paused applications for a data center sales tax exemption that she had signed into law in 2024 as part of broader economic development legislation. She simultaneously set out a voluntary framework for developers to follow, much of which is now enshrined in her executive order.
At the same time, the governor and her team have sought to retain the AI talent coming out of Massachusetts universities and attract AI companies to the state. Earlier this year, Healey made Massachusetts the first state to give its entire executive branch access to a ChatGPT-powered AI assistant. She also met with Anthropic PBC executives at the company’s San Francisco headquarters about their Massachusetts presence and future partnerships.
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