For­mer prime min­is­ter and en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has urged the Gov­ern­ment to pro­ceed cau­tious­ly with its pro­posed ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence da­ta cen­tre projects, point­ing to New York’s de­ci­sion to pause con­struc­tion of large fa­cil­i­ties over con­cerns about their im­pact on pow­er and wa­ter re­sources.

Mean­while, sev­er­al busi­ness op­er­a­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly in south Trinidad, said town hall meet­ings should be held be­fore any projects pro­ceed. They said in­de­pen­dent ex­perts should ex­plain the po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pacts, while agen­cies such as the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty should al­so weigh in.

The calls came af­ter New York be­came the first US state to im­pose a one-year mora­to­ri­um on the con­struc­tion of new da­ta cen­tres with pow­er de­mands of 50 megawatts or more. Ac­cord­ing to Reuters, the mea­sure fol­lows con­cerns that the rapid ex­pan­sion of AI fa­cil­i­ties is in­creas­ing elec­tric­i­ty costs, strain­ing wa­ter sup­plies and plac­ing ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.