The Hayward City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a temporary moratorium on consideration and approval of new data centers in the City.

The moratorium is being recommended to give City staff time to thoroughly evaluate the economic, environmental, public health, cost-of-living and other effects of data center development in Hayward.

Data centers are buildings designed and equipped for high-density computing and require dedicated uninterrupted power supplies and cooling systems. The advent and expansion of artificial intelligence is driving development of larger-scale and hyperscale data centers with ever increasing energy demands.

In Hayward, there are four existing and approved data centers near Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Eastern Substation in the southwestern portion of Hayward's industrial crescent on the City of Hayward's westside:

• A 24-megawatt (MW) facility called SF09 operating on a 10.9-acre site along Corporate Avenue.
• A 35-MW facility called SF11 operating on a 4.24-acre site also on Corporate Avenue.
• A 49-MW facility called Hayward Exchange @92 operating on 6.57 acres of a larger industrial campus along Clawiter Road near Breakwater Court.
• A 76.6-MW facility called Stack Data Center (SVY03A) under construction on an 11.3-acre site on Eden Landing Road.

Additionally, the City has been approached by a developer planning to submit applications for two new data centers that would operate at 99 megawatts each within a half mile of Hayward's existing data centers in the vicinity of Arden Road and Corporate Avenue.

The moratorium, if adopted, could remain in place for up to two years. Effectively, it is intended to call a time-out and provide time to monitor and analyze the cumulative impacts of current and potential future data center development on energy and water supplies, air quality, industrial noise levels, City emergency response capacity and City economic development priorities.

For more information, you can read the staff report to the City Council and related materials on the City of Hayward's legislative website and a Frequently Asked Questions page on data center development in Hayward on the City of Hayward's main informational website, www.hayward-ca.gov.