Ohio Gov. DeWine Revokes AI Data Center Tax Break Measures

Ohio, one of the nation’s data center destination hot spots, is suspending a tax break that has been critical to its competition with other states to attract the massive new facilities that power and train artificial intelligence chatbots.

The move Wednesday by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine comes as tax breaks for energy-hungry AI data centers are increasingly playing a role in state budgets and the industry is under pressure to pay the full costs of the vast network of its computing warehouses needed to power AI.

The size of Ohio’s tax break skyrocketed, dwarfing previous projections, as opposition to data centers is sweeping through cities, suburbs and towns there and prompting lawmakers to form a committee to study the impact.

In the meantime, residents are trying to bypass the GOP-controlled Legislature and get a referendum on November’s midterm election ballot that’s designed to permanently ban hyperscale data centers, likely the