The week before Data Center World 2026 kicked off, the Maine legislature passed what would’ve been the country’s first data center moratorium, seeking to pause large developments while the state studied the energy impacts.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the measure one day after Data Center World ended, on April 24, since the moratorium would’ve blocked the brownfield redevelopment of a closed mill into a data center. For DCW attendees, the measure’s legislative support only added to the understanding of the rising concern about data centers and utility bills. Themes around community opposition, community engagement, and economic development were discussed in depth throughout the conference, including ways that data center operators can better address community concerns.

Many states are discussing how data centers fit into their economic development efforts. As of April 1, 38 states offered tax incentives for data centers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But lawmakers in 28 of those states had introduced proposals to amend those incentives, often to “create new ‘guardrails’ to rein in incentive costs or manage energy demand,” the NCSL report says.

Other states continue eagerly courting data center development. Several states had leaders at Data Center World discussing the advantages of locating there, with ready access to power at the heart of many of those pitches.

West Virginia has positioned itself as an aggressive newcomer in the data center market, with available power, tax incentives, and a welcoming approach among the core advantages. Gov. Patrick Morrisey created a Data Economy Office to work on data center, energy, and microgrid issues, and he set a goal of growing the state’s power generation from around 15 GW annually to 50 GW by 2050.

Chris Morris, Director of the Data Economy Office, spoke on a DCW panel called Managing Data Center Growth: A Public Sector Perspective. A telecom veteran, Morris said he thought he’d be talking about the state’s great fiber connectivity a lot in this role, but he has learned that access to power is the biggest draw. “In parts of our state, we've seen outward migration of some industry. We've seen closing down of coal mines, and so there are pockets of power in certain areas,” he said. “And I think that we're seeing interest from data centers in those areas first.” Three new data center deals have committed to grid-generated power, though the state has also made provisions to support behind-the-meter microgrid development.

Then there’s Alaska. Gov. Mike Dunleavy kicked off Data Center World’s first-ever Public Policy Forum with a full-bore pitch for near-term data center development in Alaska: "If you’ve got to build a data farm tomorrow, it's not Alaska. If you're looking at building a data farm in five years, you want to start talking to us now,” Dunleavy said.

By 2031, the state is planning for multiple operational facilities with completed gas infrastructure to commercial data center parks. Alaska is building one of North America’s largest gas projects, Alaska LNG, to deliver more than 3 billion cubic feet of gas daily, promising lower electricity costs. Beyond natural gas, Alaska offers vast potential renewable energy including geothermal, tidal, onshore and offshore wind, hydroelectric, and solar. The state’s cold temperatures also raise the prospect of ambient cooling, and there could also be an appetite for using data centers’ waste heat, potentially powering greenhouses to reduce the state’s 90% food import dependency.

While the state of Alaska is a major landowner, and is planning data center parks on state land, Gov. Dunleavy said they’re still very aware of potential community concerns such as noise. They plan to learn from what developers in the lower 48 have experienced around community concerns, and also apply the state’s own experience in economic development around oil and gas and critical mineral mining. “If you come into the community first and you have the discussions and you hear their concerns, and you go back to the boardroom or to your drawing board and you say, I think we could do this, I think we could do that, that obviously helps with the social license,” he said.

Data centers still face opposition in states that are courting them, including in West Virginia. But so far, leaders there remain convinced data center development is the right economic development option to pursue. Asked what the state’s Plan B is to data center development, Morris had a clear answer.

“Well, we aren't going with plan B,” he said. “We're going with plan A, which is bringing data centers to West Virginia.”