New Yorkers are right to be skeptical of the explosion of data center development.

No community wants to see its electricity bills rise, its water resources strained, or its quality of life diminished so that a trillion-dollar technology company can build another server farm. Those concerns are real. Which is precisely why New York should resist the temptation to enact a blanket moratorium.

Instead, the state should adopt a far more practical stance: No new data center should be approved unless it clearly leaves New Yorkers better off than before it arrived. That is the opportunity before Gov. Hochul.

The Legislature has sent her a moratorium on large data centers. It reflects growing public concern, but it also risks giving away something extraordinarily valuable: leverage.

The current surge in AI investment is unlike anything we’ve seen in decades. Companies are competing aggressively for locations with available power, skilled........

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