Donald Trump · New York · The Guardian Technology
Residents have also questioned whether the supposed economic benefits justify the costs
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Hoffmann worried that the datacenter would “provide few jobs”.
Key facts
- The hamlet, located 70 miles north of New York City, was home to a 460-acre campus where IBM researched and manufactured semiconductor chips for nearly 50 years
- The temporary ban, adopted unanimously in late June, forbids the town from considering new datacenters larger than 20 megawatts until July of 2029, while officials study their potential impacts
- Barely two weeks after the East Fishkill moratorium passed, New York became the first US state to enact a moratorium on new datacenters when Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order mandating
- For decades, East Fishkill helped build New York’s tech industry
Summary
For decades, East Fishkill helped build New York’s tech industry. The hamlet, located 70 miles north of New York City, was home to a 460-acre campus where IBM researched and manufactured semiconductor chips for nearly 50 years. So when the news broke in early 2026 that a real estate developer, Treetop Companies, was exploring plans for what could become one of the largest artificial intelligence (AI) datacenters in the country, a roughly 1-gigawatt campus spanning more than 1m sq ft across about 143 acres, it seemed the town would welcome a new phase in its technological evolution. Instead, a furious backlash erupted before even a single permit application was filed with the municipal government. Even before any plans for the facility were drawn up, East Fishkill’s existing zoning laws did not allow for the construction of large datacenters.