“New Rules for the Cloud Rush,” Area Development

On May 7, 2025, Area Development shared Senior Counsel Talbot Nunnally, Senior Associate Nick Kemper, and Associate Charlsie Mann’s insights on the increased investments in data center infrastructure across the United States and how different states are regulating the utility consumption.

Nunnally, Kemper and Mann describe current concerns, “As data center development continues to accelerate, international markets—including Amsterdam, Beijing, Dublin, Frankfurt, Shanghai and Singapore—have begun to push back citing concerns over electricity and water consumption, noise, nuisance, low job creation and other related impacts.”

The attorneys discuss new laws in different states, including the Minnesota House File 3007. “Data centers use large amounts of water for both electricity production and cooling the information technology hardware that performs data storage and supports internet operations,” Nunnally, Kemper and Mann write. “The bill would impose heightened scrutiny in the evaluation and a pre-application process for proposed data centers anticipated to consume more than 100 million gallons of water per year (or 250,000 gallons per day).”

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