PLYMOUTH – Marshall County Commissioner Jesse Bohannon said he took office in 2025 with a clear mandate from voters: Stop data centers from coming to their rural, northern Indiana county.
Residents there have watched with concern, he said, as tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft build massive, energy-intensive campuses just miles to the north in St. Joseph and LaPorte counties. Those facilities will house thousands of computer servers processing data and supporting AI.
“We saw just how upset the people there were about it and how much that was impacting their lifestyle,” Bohannon said.
Marshall County commissioners in January 2025 approved a temporary moratorium on data center developments — the first county in the state to do so. In April 2026, the county became the first to outright ban the facilities.
Now, more than a third of Indiana counties have also restricted data center developments through regulations, temporary moratoriums or bans, according to Indiana University’s Environmental Resiliency Institute.
Local officials are having to react quickly. In just the last two years, around 60 large-scale data center proposals have been filed in Indiana, according to consumer advocacy group Citizen Action Coalition (CAC).
Tech companies say the developments create news jobs and generate millions of dollars in new investment and tax revenue for local communities.
But many Hoosiers are pushing back against the facilities over concerns they could increase utility bills, strain the electric grid and pollute the environment, said Ben Inskeep, program director for CAC.
“They are struggling to really see many tangible benefits,” he said. “They’re just kind of scratching their heads wondering ‘Why would we want to welcome this development?’”
At the same time, 27 public interest organizations in May signed on to a letter urging local governments across Indiana to immediately enact a moratorium on new data center developments to “allow adequate time for reasonable policies and regulations to be enacted.”
The county-level restrictions come as lawmakers in 15 states have proposed legislation implementing statewide data center bans or moratoriums, including Michigan, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In Indiana, just two counties have outright banned data centers. Most have approved temporary moratoriums to create “breathing room” as they craft ordinances regulating the facilities, explained Janet McCabe, senior policy advisor at IU’s Environmental Resiliency Institute.
The goal isn’t to ban developments, she said, but implement setbacks and noise requirements aimed at protecting residents.
“We’re seeing tremendous public interest in these proposals, so counties want to be responsive to that and think about what’s best for their communities,” she said.
That’s the case in Miami County, where commissioners in April passed a moratorium as they hash out details on a proposed data center ordinance that could bar developers from using water-intensive cooling systems or building near schools and hospitals.
Indianapolis is also advancing a proposal to create a specific zoning district for data centers that includes rules for building setbacks, utility usage and noise limits.
Bohannon said no data center projects have been proposed in Marshall County. Even so, after seeing the strife and infighting that the developments create in other Indiana communities, the best option was to simply ban them.
“We’ve seen a lot of peace since we put the moratorium in place, and we believe the ban is going to preserve that peace for us long term,” he said.
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