As part of the Florida House’s “AI Week”, lawmakers received a presentation about the infrastructure for AI data centers in Florida.
The state currently does not have massive AI data centers to the scale of ones grabbing national attention in other states like Virginia or Iowa. But Christopher Maier, who is overseeing a team selecting data center locations for Cielo Digital infrastructure, told lawmakers that could soon change.
“It was always a misperception about hurricanes and the impact of storms in Florida. I think we've done a really good job of positioning ourselves to overcome that. As you all are aware, our utilities have done a tremendous job in hardening the grid. I think a lot of places were probably more resilient and hardened than you're going to see in other places in the country,” he said.
If they do start coming, some protections are in place to protect current utility rate payers. Tiffany Cohen with Florida Power & Light said state regulators recently approved a tariff that will allow FPL to charge high energy users upfront for their upgraded power needs and infrastructure.
“They outline the costs, the requirements and the commitments up front, giving data center operators the certainty they need to make long term investments, and at the same time, they protect existing customers. Large scale upgrades needed to serve data centers are not paid for by the general body of customers,” she said.
A common concern about these data centers are environmental impacts, including energy use and pollution. Cohen told lawmakers data center operators are working to become more efficient to reduce harm.
“I think really what we're seeing is, is the industry really lean in on concerns about environmental impacts and do what they can to mitigate those,” he said.
Opposition to data centers has exploded in national concern, with over 200 groups calling for the halting of the construction of data centers nationwide.
Data centers of all types took up almost 5% of energy consumption in the U.S. in 2023 according to a report Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. That number is supposed to triple by 2028.