(BIVN) – The Hawaiʻi County Council will discuss legislation this week in Hilo, targeting a controversial aspect of the boom in artificial intelligence, or A.I.
Data centers will be the subject of Bill 170, to be heard by the Council Committee on Policy Committee on Planning, Land Use, and Economic Development during a July 7th hearing scheduled for 11 a.m. HST.
The bill explains the term “data center” means a “facility used for the industrial-scale operation of computer systems and associated equipment for the processing, computing, transmission, or dissemination of digital data, and that requires supporting infrastructure beyond that typically accessory or incidental to office, commercial, or public institutional uses.”
From Bill 170:
The purpose of this ordinance is to distinguish data processing facilities, which are permitted in industrial-commercial mixed use (MCX) zoning districts, from data centers, which are not permitted in the County pursuant to Section 25-4-4 of the Hawaiʻi County Code. This distinction will prevent data centers from being considered a permitted use due to their similarities with data processing facilities. The added definition does not encourage or allow the permitting of data centers but aims to make clear that they are not a permitted use in the County.
The bill comes at a time when communities across the United States are pushing back on data centers over their consumption of water and energy resources, and impact on the neighborhoods where they are built.
