Pennsylvania just made itself one of the hardest US states to build a data centre in

This article was published on August 19, 2026 No fast track, no non-disclosure agreements, and no shifting power costs onto households. Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order on Tuesday that makes Pennsylvania one of the harder places in America to build an AI data centre. The order strips data centres from the state’s permit fast-track programme, blocks environmental review until developers have secured local approval, and bars state agencies from signing non-disclosure agreements on data centre projects. It arrives in a state that has become one of the country’s most active AI build-out markets and one of its most aggressive regulators. Pennsylvania sued Character.AI in May after a chatbot told a state investigator it was a licensed psychiatrist, and it is now doing to physical infrastructure what it did to consumer chatbots. The framework is branded GRID, for Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development, and rests on four principles: energy affordability, transparency and community engagement, workforce development, and environmental protection. Six agencies are directed to implement it, including the Department of Environmental Protection, the Public Utility Commi