Desert Hot Springs may be the latest Coachella Valley city to impose a moratorium on data center development. It’s the latest fallout from the regional controversy over a since-rejected effort to build a data center in the city of Coachella.
In a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 16, Desert Hot Springs councilmembers will discuss approving a 45-day ban on licenses for data center projects. The move would temporarily halt any development of such a center within city boundaries, although there are currently no proposals under consideration.
The city council is taking up the issue because many members of the community have expressed a worry that a data center may be built in Desert Hot Springs, city spokesperson Shayra Hernandez told The Desert Sun.
If approved, the city would use the moratorium period to study and potentially adopt new laws that regulate where data centers could go if any developer sought to build them.
Although the initial term of the ban would only be 45 days, it could be extended for up to two years.
Both Indio and Coachella have also instituted moratoriums on data centers.
The debate over the large computing facilities kicked off in the valley earlier this year, when a proposal for a large data center in Coachella became widely known.
The prospect of a 240-acre industrial site potentially needing up to 300 megawatts of electricity on former agricultural land struck a chord across the Coachella Valley. Residents organized to protest the proposal, which was ultimately rejected by the Coachella City Council.
The backlash echoed a growing swell of pushback against data centers across the country. In the first three months of 2026, at least 75 data center projects worth around $130 billion were blocked or delayed by local opposition, according to a report by Data Center Watch, a research firm that studies data centers.
That figure roughly equaled the entire count of blocked or delayed data centers for all of 2025, according to the firm.
“As the data center pushback becomes mainstream, opposition is extending beyond grassroots groups in communities hosting new developments,” Data Center Watch said in the report, “drawing in statewide organizations, advocacy groups, and national voices focused on energy, water, land use, and ratepayer impacts.”
Large corporations have started building more large data centers because of their importance to powering artificial intelligence. AI requires complex computation to work, and data centers provide that service at scale.
Huge corporations including Google and Microsoft are competing to be leaders in AI, as are major new firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Other, smaller companies also hope to cash in on the technology.
But local residents have worried utility costs will rise if a data center is built in the Coachella Valley. Some of the facilities can use as much water and energy as a small town, which could stress resources.
The Desert Hot Springs City Council meeting is scheduled to convene at 5:30 p.m. It takes place at City Hall, located at 11-999 Palm Drive.
Sam Morgen covers local government for The Desert Sun. Reach him at smorgen@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Desert Hot Springs considering temporary ban on data centers
Reporting by Sam Morgen, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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By Sam Morgen, Palm Springs Desert Sun | USA TODAY Network
