Memphis Council Rejects Data Center Moratorium in 6-6 Tie, Passes Separate Rules on AI Facilities

The Memphis City Council deadlocked 6-6 on Tuesday on an ordinance that would have paused new data center construction and expansion in the city for up to 18 months, a tie that defeated the measure under council rules. One member was absent for a family emergency and did not vote. The same meeting, the council separately passed a companion ordinance imposing new technical requirements on data centers going forward, meaning the moratorium failed even as the city adopted its first binding rules for the industry.

The moratorium, sponsored by council member JB Smiley Jr., began as a proposed 12-month pause and was later expanded to 18 months before Tuesday's vote. It would have temporarily blocked new data centers and expansions of existing ones while a study committee drafted permanent regulations, without forcing the shutdown of any facility already operating legally. The ordinance that did pass sets rules for siting, building, expanding and operating large-scale data centers: it bans routine evaporative and once-through water cooling, requires closed-loop water-circulation systems, limits major water withdrawals for cooling, and mandates progressive use of renewable and non-carbon electricity on a phase-out schedule for carbon-based power.

The debate centers on Colossus, the AI training complex that Elon Musk's company built inside a former industrial site in southwest Memphis starting in 2024. Nearby residents have raised concerns for more than a year about air quality, water use, energy demand and noise linked to the facility's gas-burning turbines. The NAACP has filed a federal Clean Air Act lawsuit over turbines at a related company operation in Southaven, Mississippi, just across the state line; the Justice Department has asked a court to dismiss that case, and the litigation remains active.

Tensions over the moratorium boiled over at an earlier council meeting on October 6, when protesters chanted as police cleared the chamber and a fight between two women broke out in the City Hall lobby, though police said no one was detained or injured. Council member Jerri Green, who supported the moratorium, called the outcome a setback for residents: "I think we failed the citizens of Memphis tonight and what they have been asking for, so it's really disappointing." Smiley, the moratorium's sponsor, said the goal was never to block the industry outright, adding the city needed "to make sure we're putting people before profits." Mayor Paul Young has separately ordered a 90-day administrative review of the city's regulatory approach to large-scale and hyperscale data centers.

With the pause defeated and the new technical rules now in effect only for data centers built after Tuesday's vote, Memphis' fight over AI infrastructure shifts to implementation: how aggressively the city enforces the new water and power standards, and whether Shelby County, which is weighing its own separate moratorium, moves to restrict projects outside city limits that the council's vote left untouched.