San Francisco pauses new data centers to write AI-era rules

San Francisco has imposed an emergency 45-day halt on city approvals for new data centers, effective immediately. These are the power-hungry buildings packed with servers, storage, networking gear and cooling systems that make AI services and much of the internet work. The city will use the pause to examine their demands on electricity and water, air-quality and neighborhood effects, and land use—then decide whether to extend the freeze or replace it with lasting rules. The move matters because a city closely tied to the AI boom is treating the physical infrastructure behind it as an urban-planning question, rather than an invisible technical necessity.