A new bill presented to the American Senate aims to impose costs related to emissions on data centers supporting blockchain networks and artificial intelligence operations if they exceed newly proposed federal environmental thresholds.
Legislation, detailed in an April 11 Bloomberg The report is intended to alleviate the growing environmental impact of high energy intensity IT operations.
The proposed “clean Cloud act” is presented by Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and John Fetterman.
The Senate bill seeks EPA emissions standards for major data centers and crypto minors
The bill calls for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish program performance standards for large -scale data centers and crypto extraction facilities with more than 100 kilowatts of installed computer power.
These standards are said to be based on regional gate emissions and would aim at an annual reduction of 11% of emissions.
The bill offers a financial penalty for installations that do not comply. The issuers would be billed $ 20 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2E), the costs increasing each year by inflation plus $ 10.
The Senatorial Environment and Public Works Committee noted that the demand for electricity of data centers and cryptographic minors increases more quickly than the supply of carbon -free electricity, potentially leading to energy price increases for consumers.
The projections suggest that data centers could represent up to 12% of American electricity consumption by 2028.
Morgan Stanley’s research estimates that data centers around the world could contribute up to 2.5 billion metric tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2030. Critics argue that the bill unjustly targets certain sectors.
Vaneck’s research manager Matthew Sigel described the erroneous attempt proposal to replace the server’s infrastructure, including Bitcoin’s exploitation, in what he called a “loss strategy”.
The proposed legislation can also conflict with the policies of cryptography and AI of the current administration.
President Donald Trump reversed an executive decree in 2023 by President Joe Biden who imposed IA security regulations and publicly declared his ambition to position the United States as a global Center for Cryptocurrency and IA innovation.
Crypto minors swivel in AI
Meanwhile, crypto extraction companies such as Galaxy, Corescientific and Terawulf have more and more pivoted towards high performance IT services to support AI models.
With the unprecedented demand for Data Center and GPU resources, cryptographic mining companies find new opportunities in the AI sector by converting their existing infrastructure.
Last year, Core Scientific announced a partnership with the IA Coreweave startup, which is expected to generate around $ 3.5 billion in 12 years.
“We consider the opportunity in AI today to be one where we can convert the existing infrastructure that we have to accommodate customers who seek to install very large GPU paintings for their customers who are ultimately AI customers,” said Core Scientific CEO Adam Sullivan.
The company has identified around 500 megawatts of capacity available for the conversion to AI installations, potentially the largest GPU episode dedicated to AI in the world.
The US Senate bill offers emissions for blockchain and AI data centers appeared first on Cryptonews.
