By Liam Niemeyer, Kentucky Lantern · June 10, 2026 A server room in a data center. (Photo by Getty Images) Kentucky’s two largest cities took action Tuesday afternoon to begin considering zoning regulations to control — or potentially ban — power-intensive hyperscale data centers. On Tuesda y, Lexington Urban County Council suspended legislative rules to enact a moratorium on applications for data centers through Oct. 31 and work on zoning amendments to regulate data centers.  Lexington council member Emma Curtis told the Lantern concern surrounding a data center developer buying a local data center property, with intentions to expand the data center’s footprint, led to the council swiftly passing the moratorium.  “This is a case of an issue being expedited because of constituent concern and advocacy,” Curtis said. “The people that we represent made it known to us that they don’t want that expansion. They don’t want these types of data centers in Fayette County, so we acted.”  In a statement, Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said she supported the data center moratorium to give the city more time to see what local controls are needed. “We need to think very carefully about data centers,” Gorton said. “They do not produce many jobs, and have the potential to increase utility costs on local residents, as well as other concerns. I support very tight controls.” Gorton also said the city does not support public incentives for the data center developer seeking to expand the local data center property.   Also Tuesday, the Louisville Metro Planning Commission released a draft ordinance regulating the siting of data centers – banning any data center that’s more than 500,000 square feet while restricting facilities over 250,000 square feet to industrial areas.  The state has been home to smaller data centers that power online services including digital cloud storage, but with a wave of artificial intelligence investment, sprawling data centers termed as “hyperscale” that can consume the electricity equivalent of entire power plants have been built and proposed across the country.  The size of such hyperscale data centers can vary, reaching millions of square feet in size. The International Data Corporation defines such a center as having at minimum 5,000 servers and 10,000 square feet of floor space. The Louisville Planning Commission in March had approved a 1.6 million-square-foot data center in West Louisville despite local pushback, and a separate Louisville committee tabled a data center moratorium earlier this month.  Brian Davis, the director of Louisville’s office of planning, said the goal of the proposed regulations is to have “clear, achievable standards that provide transparency and clarity for both residents and potential developers.” “The regulations reflect extensive community feedback and are designed to support responsible investment while protecting Louisville’s long-term interests,” Davis said in a statement. Louisville residents have 30 days to submit public comments on the draft regulations before they are presented to Louisville Metro Council.  View in feeds The post Kentucky’s two largest cities take action to address concerns over hyperscale data centers appeared first on The Lexington Times. ...read more read less