Over 230 national and community groups across the U.S. have called on Congress for an immediate nationwide halt on building new data centers until strong new safeguards against the environmental, economic and social impacts of artificial intelligence are in place. Such a ban would stop the AI boom in its tracks and reshape the entire tech industry.

The new coalition — including Food & Water Watch, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and local groups in 35 states — says the number of U.S. data centers will triple by 2030, consuming enough energy to power 28 million households, with 56% of that power coming from fossil fuels.

These data centers will further require as much water as 18.5 million households. Many will be in states with acute water shortages, such as Texas and Arizona, a problem certain to get worse with rising temperatures.

Six big tech companies are building massive data centers that will consume between 1 gigawatt and 5 gigawatts of electricity; 1 gigawatt being enough to power a city of 750,000 people. This year these six companies alone have spent around $400 billion on AI data centers, and next year they intend to spend even more. With demand from tech companies seemingly limitless, dozens of other companies and investors are building more huge AI data centers wherever they can find the requisite supplies of land, energy and water.

AI data centers are also driving the explosive growth of semiconductor factories, or “fabs,” that make the microchips to fill them. These massive industrial plants not only require vast amounts of energy and water, but also spew out toxic waste, including PFAS “forever” chemicals.