Montgomery County wants data center moratorium while backlash grows

State of play: Montgomery County's council members will vote Tuesday on an 18-month moratorium on new data center construction, as activists call for protections from environmental impacts and increased utility costs.

• It adds to County executive Marc Elrich's six-month pause declared last month.
• Another bill would limit future facilities to certain zones, Bethesda Today reports.

Zoom out: On the other side of the DMV, Northern Virginia is known as America's "data center alley." While most are clustered in Loudoun County, or further out in Fauquier County, there's one trying to open inside the Beltway.

• Off Edsall Road in Fairfax County, the $5 million buildout would be 75 feet tall, the Washington Business Journal reports.

*Speaking of the noise, Axios' national energy correspondent Amy Harder toured a lab in Ashburn, where servers make Claude possible:

• Inside the room, she writes, "I was immediately hit with what I can only describe as 'demented white noise.'" That'd be the fans running to cool down "racks of AI chips" that run awfully hot.

The intrigue: And turns out, it's hard to get in one of these centers. Most places declined her requests for one or wanted an NDA.

• "This type of secrecy is part of what's fueling the backlash against data centers," Harder writes, "alongside strains on electricity and local water supplies."