South Bend utilities commission meeting opens up discussion on data centers

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The City of South Bend hosted their utilities commission meeting on Thursday, featuring open discussions revolving around data centers.

Program Director for Citizen Action Coalition, Ben Inskeep, was one of the three presenters at the meeting, and is an advocate for clean energy for the Hoosier state.

Inskeep and Citizen Action Coalition are calling on federal lawmakers, Indiana state lawmakers, and local public officials to pass an AI data center moratorium.

“I think it’s very hard to understand and comprehend the amount of power a data center uses,” Inskeep said. “Like I said before, these are the single largest users of power on the grid.”

For many council members, including First district council president Canneth Lee, the presentation mentioned too much about the threats that data centers pose and not enough about the positive outcomes.

“What are the good things that happen when data centers come to a city,” Lee said. “What about the jobs? What about the opportunities?”

While many people may ask the question, “Why are we focusing on large scale data centers if South Bend does not have one?”

For Inskeep, the sole goal of a presentation like this one is to inform local government and residents on the steps that can be taken if talks ever do heat up about large scale data centers in South Bend.