---
title: Pennsylvania Orders Strict Rules for AI Data Centers
description: Gov. Shapiro's executive order bars fast-track permitting and NDAs, and makes developers pay their own grid-upgrade costs.
date: 2026-08-18T00:00:00.000Z
category: ai-news
tags: pennsylvania, ai-policy, data-centers
---

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order requiring AI data center developers to
sign legally binding consent agreements meeting a new set of state standards before their projects can
proceed, in what his office called the nation's strictest guardrails on the industry.

## What the order actually requires

The order directs Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection to only review permit
applications from developers who have committed to the state's "GRID" requirements, covering energy
affordability, environmental protection, workforce development, transparency, and community
engagement, according to the
[governor's own announcement](https://www.pa.gov/governor/newsroom/2026-press-releases/governor-shapiro-signs-executive-order-on-data-center-developmen).
Developers must first submit a notice of intent, then detailed compliance plans, before signing a
legally enforceable consent order with penalties for noncompliance. The order also removes AI data
center proposals from the state's fast-track permitting process entirely and bars the use of
nondisclosure agreements on these projects.

## The cost provision

Developers will be required to fund the full cost of their own electricity infrastructure needs,
including any grid upgrades, rather than passing those costs on to ordinary Pennsylvania ratepayers,
per the governor's office.

## Why it matters

Barring NDAs on data center projects is the detail worth underlining here: those agreements have been
a recurring point of friction in other states, where residents and local officials have complained
they couldn't get basic information about a project's water or power draw before it was approved.
Making developers absorb their own grid-upgrade costs directly addresses the most common public
complaint about AI data centers nationally, that everyday electricity customers end up subsidizing the
industry's buildout. Whether other states follow Pennsylvania's specific approach, or developers simply
route new projects to states with looser rules, is the real test of how much leverage a single state
actually has here.

What to watch: whether other states adopt similar consent-order requirements, and how the first
developers respond to Pennsylvania's new process.

More [AI News](/ai-news/) coverage, or everything tagged [ai-policy](/tag/ai-policy/).