TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill designed to protect Florida residents from footing the bill for data centers late Thursday afternoon.
The law requires tech companies to pay for all utilities they use and restricts where facilities can be built. Florida has no large-scale data centers, but DeSantis said he wants to prevent problems that other states are already facing.
Florida Politics
“You should not pay one more red cent for electricity because of a hyper-scale data center as an individual,” DeSantis said. “That’s just not right for the most wealthy companies in the history of the world to come in and have individual Floridians or Americans subsidize these hyper-scale data centers.”
The measure was the only AI-related bill to pass this year’s legislative session. Most of the new law takes effect July 1.
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