H.R. 9442: Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

This bill would place a temporary halt on building or expanding certain large artificial intelligence data centers until Congress passes new laws that the bill says should better regulate AI.

What would be paused

Starting on the date the bill becomes law, construction or upgrades could not begin or continue for covered artificial intelligence data centers. The bill defines these facilities broadly to include sites used to develop or run AI systems at scale, and some large power-hungry data centers even if they are not solely AI facilities.

In practical terms, this would stop new AI-focused data center projects and major expansions of existing ones, at least until the conditions in the bill are met.

What would be needed to lift the pause

The moratorium would remain in place until Congress passes laws that, according to the bill, do all of the following:

• require federal review and approval of AI products before release to the public;
• make sure the economic gains from AI and robotics benefit workers as well as company owners, including by limiting job displacement and sharing wealth more broadly;
• ensure any AI data centers built or upgraded afterward do not raise consumer utility bills;
• ensure they do not worsen climate change or environmental harm;
• give affected communities a say in whether the facility is built or upgraded;
• bar the use of government subsidies for those facilities; and
• require union jobs with labor standards such as prevailing wages, registered apprenticeships, and project labor agreements.

The bill also says the later law must explicitly end the moratorium.

Reporting and enforcement

The Secretary of Energy would have to submit quarterly public reports on AI data centers. Those reports would need to include information such as:

• who finances and operates the facility;
• water use and energy use;
• greenhouse gas emissions and air quality monitoring;
• wastewater discharge and heat output;
• cooling chemicals used;
• noise levels;
• wages, benefits, and job numbers;
• land, utility, or government agreements; and
• a certification that no government subsidies were used.

The Department of Energy could also use subpoenas, written questions, inspections, and permitting conditions to verify compliance.

Export controls on AI hardware

The bill would also direct the Secretary of Commerce to block exports, reexports, and certain transfers of computing hardware used for AI if the hardware is going to a country that does not have rules comparable to the U.S. moratorium-related standards, or to a person in such a country.

“Computing infrastructure hardware” is defined broadly to include semiconductors, integrated circuits, computers, networking equipment, and data storage systems. The export restriction would apply when the hardware is intended for use in AI data centers or in training or deploying AI models at scale.

Relevant Companies

Likely impacted companies could include:

• AMZN - Amazon could be affected through its large cloud and AI infrastructure buildout, including data center construction and expansion.
• MSFT - Microsoft could be affected because of its AI services and cloud data center investments.
• GOOGL - Alphabet could be affected through its AI and cloud computing data center plans.
• META - Meta could be affected by restrictions on building AI-related data centers and infrastructure.
• ORCL - Oracle could be affected through cloud and data center projects supporting AI workloads.
• NVDA - Nvidia could be affected by export controls on computing infrastructure hardware used for AI.
• AMD - AMD could be affected by restrictions on exporting AI-related chips and related hardware.
• AVGO - Broadcom could be affected through data center networking and semiconductor products used in AI infrastructure.
• INTC - Intel could be affected by export controls and reduced demand for AI-related infrastructure hardware.
• SMCI - Super Micro Computer could be affected because it sells servers and systems used in AI data centers.
• ANET - Arista Networks could be affected by limits on networking equipment used in AI data centers.
• DELL - Dell could be affected through server and storage hardware sales for AI infrastructure.
• CSCO - Cisco could be affected through networking equipment used in AI data centers.