San Francisco’s city attorney has hit Meta with a cease-and-desist letter telling the company to stop “allowing” paid advertisements that include AI-generated child sexual abuse content and asked it to explain how the ads repeatedly ran on its platforms.

On Tuesday, WIRED reported that Meta has run more than 350 ads in recent months that transformed still images of minors—some of them confirmed as real individuals, including a member of a European royal family—into short videoclips that can depict them performing sexual acts. When clicked, these ads would direct people to download AI image- and video-generation apps, some of which could be used to digitally undress people or create other nonconsensual intimate imagery.

The ads, which were discovered by researchers at the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), included some identical ads that had been uploaded multiple times, and in total they reached more than 29,000 accounts in countries in the European Union. The ads that were shown across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads also targeted accounts in the US, Australia, and India. WIRED initially reported on a batch of 53 of the ads at the start of August, but more than 250 of the total number of ads ran on Meta’s platforms after this initial report.

“Meta has failed to address a known issue of AI-generated child sexually explicit ads, while profiting from them,” San Francisco city attorney David Chiu says in a statement to WIRED. “These ads are deeply disturbing and cause harm to real children. Meta claims to have zero tolerance for child exploitation, yet the scale and persistence of these issues suggest current efforts are woefully inadequate. This is unacceptable, and Meta must do better.”

“No company—particularly one that claims all advertisements are reviewed and approved prior to distribution and then accepts payment for that distribution—should permit its advertising systems to be used in this manner,” Chiu writes in the four-page letter his office sent to Meta’s lawyers.

The letter raises a host of questions about how Meta’s ad policies and safety systems operate and asks that the company’s legal, child-safety, and advertising staff engage in “prompt discussions” with the city office. “These findings are especially troubling because they do not appear to reflect an isolated failure that Meta corrected when first alerted to the problem,” Chiu writes.

Meta says there is “no indication” that the ads were displayed in San Francisco and this means they are “outside the city attorney’s jurisdiction.” While Meta’s ad library, which is a repository of ads, includes some data about ads published in the US, it does not break down where in the US ads may have run.

In response to Meta’s jurisdictional claims, City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Alex Barrett-Shorter tells WIRED that, because “San Francisco consumers can access the unlawful ads through Meta online spaces,” the matter is the the city of San Francisco’s business.

“We find Meta’s response astonishing. Meta appears less concerned about whether they’re guilty of exploiting children than whether San Francisco should say anything about it,” Barrett-Shorter says. “Meta has bigger problems to solve here than determining our jurisdiction.”

Meta previously told WIRED that many of the ads identified by the TTP researchers had already been removed before they were reported—all of them have now been removed for violating its policies—and most had “fewer than 200 impressions” from accounts. “We don’t tolerate nudify apps or any kind of child exploitation, whether real or AI-generated,” a Meta spokesperson previously said. The company said the “total ad spend” for the 300-plus ads found by the researchers was “under $5,000.”

• The expanding market for data centers and associated renewable energy supplies has attracted the insurance industry
• Data centers alone could represent a $91 billion market
• A destroyed AI data center could cost $50 billion to replace

The cost of data centers continues to rise, with insurance now added to real estate, communications, energy, and environmental impact. Several reports indicate that not only is insurance a growing cost for big guns like OpenAI and Meta, it’s a market that looks set to expand alongside the increase in data centers.

A new report by the Swiss Re Institute indicates the insurance industry could collect $91 billion in premiums from AI data centers between now and 2030, with a further $111 billion from renewable energy installations linked to the data centers.

We may not want to pay $2,000 for it, or couldn’t spend that even if we wanted to thanks to RAMaggedon-high prices, but there’s no doubt that the centerpiece of Apple’s primary iPhone launch this year was the foldable iPhone Duo. From a bread-and-butter perspective, though, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, despite a price increase, were the highlight of the Surprise and Shine event. Apple took the opportunity to raise the prices of much of the rest of the line, though.

Much of what we’re treated to during these launch events is a recap of the new capabilities of their operating systems, which have usually been available in beta since the developers conferences where they get announced. 

For Apple, that means demonstrations of its updated iOS 27 and WatchOS 27, announced at WWDC in June running on the new hardware. But we’ve been using the OSes for a while and don’t have to rely on passing demos during the hardware announcement: Here’s our  experience with the beta and what to know about iOS 27 before you start using it as well as our take on the new Siri in WatchOS. 

On the upside, the memetic reaction to the Duo brought out the creative snarkers of social media.

Check out our complete coverage of Apple’s September 2026 iPhone launch and play-by-play commentary on the event in our archived live blog.

Preorders for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max and Watches start soon and they ship a week later the Duo is up for preorder starting and ships at the end of October. And don’t forget the cases.

John Ternus’ event debut as CEO

After the initial cinematic opening to promote the new variable aperture camera on the iPhone 18 Pro and Max, Tim Cook provided a clever, well-done segue to Ternus’ first Apple launch as CEO.

Ternus came up through product design, and it showed during the event. If memory serves, we were provided with more specific hardware information about chips, device builds, cooling systems and so on than in a lot of earlier launches. That might not appeal to everyone, but it’s the type of thing that keeps me awake as we head into the second hour of these things.

There also seemed to be a lot more video shot in lots of locations around LA. This was likely to drive home the association between Apple and “pro” cameras, but it made a very nice change from a lot of static Apple Park and heartwarming family video.

Abrar Al-Heeti/CNET

Perks of the iPhone Duo

In addition to being its first foldable, the iPhone Duo brought a much longed-for feature back into the…fold.

Touch ID disappeared along with the iPhone’s Home button; the last holdout was the iPhone SE which was discontinued in 2022. Even if you’re fine with Face ID, having a fallback method for logging in and approving purchases makes sense, and its certainly more convenient than having to enter a PIN code.

But it unfortunately replaced Face ID rather than supplement it. 

We had some in-chat mockery about ability to register multiple fingerprints for the Touch ID, but as someone who occasionally has dirty, greasy or otherwise electronics-objectional hands, being able to use a clean finger sounds nice to me.

I like the simultaneous front and rear camera feeds, which lets use the outer screen flipped towards the subject. It reminds me of methods introduced to get pets’ attention from the early days of phones and before phones had cameras; I remember using an app that mimicked different cat vocalizations, though I really spent a lot of time wiggling my fingers above my head.

Abrar Al-Heeti/CNET

I’m also a huge fan of the nano-texture screen layer, which comes from Apple’s desktop displays and MacBook Pros. With its excellent anti-reflective properties, it makes the most sense on a phone. I’d like to see it on more than just the Duo.

My biggest concern about the Duo was the size. The iPhone 16 Pro Max I currently have occasionally feels a hair too big to use comfortably single handed. But the folded Duo is a bit narrower.

Variable aperture camera on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max

Apple made a big deal about its mechanical aperture for the new 48MP main cameras on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, and it is a breakthrough for a phone. 

Electronic apertures used by most small cameras and phones simply limit or increase the amount of light the sensor absorbs. A mechanical, bladed aperture physically changes the shape of the hole which controls the exposure, and that determines what bokeh and bright highlights look like as well as how naturally the depth of field is rendered.

So introducing a mechanical aperture should allow for more control over the quality of the look (as opposed to the quality of the image) looking photos and videos. That’s notable.

But don’t expect a truly pro-lens look, though. It’s a six-bladed diaphragm, which isn’t even as good as some entry-level kit lenses, and 8 blades is more or less the minimum for really nice-looking, soft bokeh. In its video showing off the camera, there was very little of it.

There are four aperture settings, f1.48-f4, which highlights the constraint of the small phone sensor and module. By f4 on a sensor that small you’re essential at infinite focus, where on a larger sensor you might get up to f16 or f32. The bottom line is you don’t have a lot of depth-of-field variability to play with for that variable aperture.

I’m reserving judgement on the underscreen front camera for the moment, though.

Burgundy Pro, Night Sky Duo

I’m a fan of deep, rich colors for phones, though I usually just cram it in a case and never see it again. At least based on the livestream, the burgundy looks like a nice change from the aggressive orange of the previous generation (though I do like it), and the navy-black Night Sky seems a lovely choice after my MacBook Pro-favorite Space Gray. 

A20 Pro 

In a switch-up from previous years, Apple launched its new laptop and desktop chip, the M6, ahead of the A20 Pro, which is incorporated by all three iPhones. Usually the mobile processor comes first and the computer chip inherits its major architectural changes from that. In this case, the A20 has the same 2nm process size as the M6, down from 3nm in previous generations. 

A smaller process size allows for a denser die, which ultimately lets you fit more circuitry in the same size package. 

In this case, it has the doubled Neural Engine of the M6, used for the on-device AI processing, from 16 to 32 cores. That’s likely an essential upgrade for decent performance with on-device Siri AI. 

There are also more cores, both GPU and CPU, plus the change from performance cores to super cores, which can run at faster clock speeds. 

It also has the packaging with the memory placement optimized for better heat dissipation because smaller process sizes and denser dies can generate a lot more heat than bigger ones. That plus the switch to super cores required it.

Apple also dealt with heat by adding a vapor chamber and adding a dissipation layer beneath the screen.

Efficiencies introduced by the chip theoretically improve battery life, according to the company.

iPhone Handoff

If you’ve got two iPhones, iPhone handoff will let you share a single phone number, designating one eSIM as primary and the other as a companion. It sounds interesting, and would let you leave one phone at home or, with careful scheduling let someone else pick up (for say an elderly relative or young child) but it’s one of those features that could suffer if it’s badly implemented. I’m not sure if it lets you save the cost of a second line, because you’ve still got to have an activated SIM in the companion phone. I also wish it could work with a non-Apple phone.

It’s also kind of confusing, since Apple already has Handoff for sharing tasks across devices.

Watch Ultra 4 improved sensors 

More sensitive, frequently polling sensors are an unambiguous win if you use them in a watch, as long as they don’t overwhelm the rest of the system (which I have no reason to think they do here). Better sensors in the Watch Ultra 4 mean more accurate readings and more easily recognized outliers.

Audio Intelligence sound recognition

The Watches’ Audio Intelligence can, among other things, decode sounds into visual notifications for the hearing impaired. That’s a nice accessibility perk. 

An AI-driven feature that I could really use, though, is real-time accent compensation in AirPods; the AirPods 5 received some tweaks inherited from the higher-end model, including improved active noise cancelling. Translation is nice, but I have a lot of trouble understanding people with heavy accents of all kinds — a big drawback when you live in New York City.

It’s not all sunshine, though. There are a lot of things I just say “nope” about.

Always on AI

On one hand, I like the idea of a Watch that can catch parts of conversations I routinely miss (Live Rewind), either because I’ve gone space cadet or because my hearing glitched, as it tends to do. But I’m also one of those Luddites who doesn’t like or use devices with always-on listening or recording.

I’m not a big fan of Apple’s “it only stays on our servers” Private Cloud Compute privacy narrative, which surfaced once again today, especially since Apple Intelligence/Siri AI can also use hybrid (local plus cloud) and third-party-integration models. Even if it stays on your device, you still never know until after the fact what has obtained access to your data — and it may now include a lot of health data. 

It may also be because I don’t find a lot of the commonly trotted out use cases very compelling. Apple Intelligence, and the upcoming dedicated Siri app, can do the things everybody’s on-device AI can, which seems to be writing email, summarizing calendars, travel scheduling, creating shopping lists, generating wallpaper and so on. 

To me, a lot of the AI used by the Watch Series 12/Ultra Health and related apps and on similar devices, such as Stuff, goes too far into the micromanaging-your-life zone. If it’s going to give a Readiness score of my ability to handle activities, I’m going back to bed and pulling the covers up over my head, because my body tells me it’s not ready for anything. 

The iPhone Duo’s drawbacks

While the Duo has the same 48MP main camera as the iPhone 18 Pro and Max, it doesn’t have the same mechanical aperture or high-end features. This is actually a notable negative which I’d weight heavily when considering the phone.

The other thing I suspect will make things awkward are the screen aspect ratios. Folded, each side is just shy of 3:2 — it’s 1.45 instead of 1.5 — which has become nonstandard. 1.5 is the aspect ratio of full-frame camera sensors, which conceivably makes it nice for displaying them, but neither video or games use it. Opened, the large screen has a 1.4 aspect ratio, which is even more novel.

As a result, Apple has had to alter iOS 27’s screen layout settings, both to take advantage of the extra screen real estate (good), as well as to change where control appear so you can use them comfortably (bad). Apple spins these as “optimizations.” But it means inconsistent user experiences and interface conventions between the Duo and the rest of the iPhone line.

Additionally, it means that the operating system will have to adapt a lot of existing non-Apple apps and content on the fly to run right on the device. That’s always a bumpy road.

While the Duo supports the Apple Pencil, it’s just plain odd. It works with the original, USB-C Pencil rather than the more recent Bluetooth version, which seems inconvenient for carrying around and using — it requires physical pairing with the device and plugged-in charging. Plus it’s not really designed to use with the phone, since there’s no way to dock it. It seems like the least-effort solution possible to a stylus.

Lori Grunin

Senior Editor / Computers and Gaming Hardware

I’ve been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handing out buying advice for more than 25 years.

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A quick glance at the spec sheet and it looks like the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is quite similar to last year’s Ultra 3. The same 49mm titanium case houses the same big 3,000-nit display, with the Action button on the side, satellite connectivity, 100-meter water resistance, and recreational diving support down to 40 meters. Apple hasn’t even changed the two case colors.

But that’s just the hardware side of the story. Look underneath the familiar casing, and things start looking a lot newer. The Ultra 4 introduces an entirely new Health Sensing System, higher-frequency heart-rate and HRV measurements, and so much more. It also starts at the same $799 price at which the Ultra 3 launched. So for someone buying their first Apple Watch Ultra, the decision might be obvious. Though the same doesn’t hold true for existing Watch Ultra 3 owners.

Apple Watch Ultra 4 vs Watch Ultra 3 Specs

Apple’s technical specifications confirm that the physical aspects like dimensions, display resolution, peak brightness, water resistance, storage, and core connectivity remain almost unchanged.

Design and display: It’s basically a tie

If you were hoping Apple had shrunk the Ultra again, you’re going to be disappointed. Both generations measure 49mm tall, 44mm wide, and 12mm thick. The Ultra 4 has actually gained a tiny amount of weight, reaching 63 grams in natural titanium compared with 61.6 grams for the Ultra 3. While Apple can say the Ultra has gotten thinner, a 1.4-gram difference is not going to make a difference in real-world use.

The display hasn’t materially changed either, with both models using a 422 x 514 LTPO3 wide-angle OLED panel with a 1,245mm² display area, 1Hz Always-On capability, and brightness ranging from 1 nit to 3,000 nits. In our review of the Apple Watch Ultra 3, we praised its thinner body and wide viewing angles as one of the biggest improvements Apple had made to the Ultra line. It finally made Apple’s enormous adventure watch considerably easier to live with every day.

Health tracking: Ultra 4 wins by a mile

This is where the generational gap finally opens up. The Ultra 4 has Apple’s new Health Sensing System, built around redesigned optical and electrical sensors and the S11 chip. Larger, more efficient green LEDs allow the watch to measure heart rate every five seconds throughout the day, while Apple says HRV can now be measured up to 24 times more frequently.

The additional data feeds several new features. The biggest of which is the new Readiness feature. It basically combines recent activity, training load, sleep score, vitals, and recovery information into a score from 0 to 10. Rather than simply handing over the number, Apple categorizes your condition as Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go For It. The score can also change throughout the day as new workout and health data arrives.

Apple is additionally separating Recovery HRV from broader HRV trends and adding HRV to Vitals. Daytime Vitals can flag changes before you go to sleep, which makes the Ultra 4 considerably more useful for athletes trying to judge recovery and training readiness. This addresses one of the more noticeable holes in Apple’s previous fitness offering by finally offering a unified daily recovery metric that competitors such as Garmin, Oura, and Whoop have emphasized.

Fitness and GPS: mostly familiar, with better endurance

Both watches remain extremely capable sports devices. You get precision dual-frequency GPS, customizable workouts, Heart Rate Zones, Race Route, Pacer, training load, automatic track detection, cycling power-meter support, offline hiking maps, swimming metrics, and recreational scuba diving.

Apple is once again claiming the Ultra 4 provides the most accurate on-device GPS in a sports watch, based on testing against leading dual-frequency sports watches in August 2026. Interestingly, Apple made a similar accuracy claim about the Ultra 3 last year, and both spec sheets still list precision dual-frequency GPS. I consequently wouldn’t describe this as a major new GPS hardware system without more testing.

Though Apple claims that there is a clearer enhancement in step and indoor-distance tracking thanks to its redesigned pedometer algorithms around the S11 chip that improved all-day step counts and treadmill distance estimates. These changes won’t impact the average user, but athletes who specifically care about recovery data get a much larger upgrade thanks to Readiness and higher-frequency heart sensing.

S11 and software: Don’t upgrade just for Siri AI

The S11 chip sounds like an easy reason to favor the Ultra 4. Except there’s one minor detail to remember. Siri AI isn’t exclusive to the Watch Ultra 4. Apple says watchOS 27 supports Apple Watch Ultra 2 and newer, and Siri AI can run on those supported watches when paired with a compatible Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone.

Meaning, your Ultra 3 still gets Apple’s much more conversational assistant, personal context awareness, the dedicated Siri app, dynamic app grid, smarter Smart Stack, and many of watchOS 27’s other improvements. What’s really new is the hardware-exclusive feature, Audio Intelligence. The S11 chip contains a Secure Enclave designed to process audio independently, allowing the Ultra 4 to support four new functions: Sound Recognition, faster automatic Shazam, Live Rewind, and Siri Recap.

Live Rewind can recover the previous 15 seconds of a conversation as text when you double-press the Digital Crown. Siri Recap goes further by generating a high-level summary of conversations for you to revisit later. Apple says neither feature stores the raw audio, and both arrive in beta later in 2026.

Battery life: this might be the upgrade people notice immediately

Battery life was already one of the Ultra 3’s greatest strengths. Apple rated it for up to 42 hours of ordinary use and 72 hours in Low Power Mode. During one of our tests, it had 31% charge remaining even after running for nearly 60 hours, demonstrating just how strong its endurance could be under mixed usage.

In the latest generation, normal use rises to 50 hours, while Low Power Mode reaches 84 hours. An ordinary outdoor workout with full GPS and heart-rate measurements increases from 14 to 18 hours. Apple’s new Extended Workout mode reaches 25 hours while retaining full GPS and heart-rate measurements.

There’s also Max Extended Workout mode, rated for up to 45 hours of outdoor running, walking, or hiking while still taking GPS readings every second. Apple specifically pitches that as enough for many 100-mile races. Both watches reach 80% in about 45 minutes, but 15 minutes on the charger now gives the Ultra 4 up to 18 hours of normal use, versus 12 hours on the Ultra 3. Five minutes provides up to 10 hours of sleep tracking instead of eight.

Apple Watch Ultra 4 vs. Ultra 3: Which should you buy?

For a new Apple Watch Ultra buyer, get the Ultra 4 if you’ve been waiting to buy one. Apple has kept the $799 starting price while improving the areas that actually make sense for this product. Readiness and higher-frequency HRV are quite big updates in the health tracking department. The Health Sensing System captures considerably more physiological data, and battery life is moving farther into dedicated sports-watch territory.

It’s an easy recommendation when the alternative costs the same (when not on discount). So if you’re already on the Watch 3 Ultra, it’s better to stick with it. The display and physical design are essentially identical. You already have 5G, satellite communication, precision dual-frequency GPS, excellent battery life, and almost the entire Ultra fitness toolkit. Most importantly, watchOS 27 means you aren’t being locked out of Siri AI or Apple’s larger software redesign after only one year.

We finally have an Apple foldable!

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I think it’s basically a question of timing. A lot of people are sensing that the pace of capabilities is picking up. We’re already pushing from human to superhuman in many areas, like coding, hacking, math, and I think people are aware of this. Even if there’s a lot of talk in the press about things being hyped, I think people see that things are just not slowing down.

That’s one reason, and two is the recent safety incidents, which have updated a lot of people around the sci-fi–sounding doomer concerns not really being so sci-fi after all. Both of these have been gradual trends over the last few years. Things like the models being aware of when they’re being tested has been a thing for a while now. Maybe three years ago, that was a sci-fi concern. Then, about a year ago, that became a real thing.

Those two things mean that people are quite receptive to someone working on AI saying, “Yeah, in the next year, things could get pretty bad, pretty fast.”

You mentioned the recent incidents. Can you be more specific about what you’re referring to and why it led to you speaking out now?

I think the big classic example here is the attack on Hugging Face on the part of OpenAI’s agent swarm. What’s so shocking about this one is the agents did this hack as part of a general strategy for understanding more about the grader. They were trying to understand the world they found themselves in, trying to understand the thing that was doing the grading. They decided that it would make sense to go on this very concerted effort to hack into some infrastructure, and they succeeded.

This previously sounded like science fiction. Two years ago, an evaluation of an AI would have been running a model on some math questions. Now we’ve got cases where, while the AI is being evaluated, it runs for days, comes up with all sorts of ideas of its own, and decides to hack into some third party and actually compromises their infrastructure. It looks like it does this all of its own volition, with no priming on the part of the human. This just happened while it was being tested.

Some people think the Hugging Face incident is a sign that the AI companies are moving recklessly fast, while others think it’s a sign that the AI models are just very good at hacking now, and then some think it’s both. I’m curious what your exact takeaway from it is.

I don’t want to focus too much on the Hugging Face attack, because I do also think there is plenty of evidence that we don’t know how to align models properly. When we train models, we push them through this set of training environments and then hope that what comes out at the end will, like, largely behave sensibly, but we still can’t precisely control how the AI behaves.

We can’t make sure that it won’t do things like try and randomly decide to impersonate a human online in order to achieve something—we don’t know how to guarantee that. I think that’s the main takeaway.

Audio-Technica has released its first ever pair of wireless open-backed headphones in the ATH-AL5NC.

This new launch builds on a line-up already established through the R-Series for music production and the recently expanded ADX Series for audiophile listening, with the ATH-AL5NC extending Audio-Technica’s open-back design into wireless territory for the first time.

Specially designed 53mm dynamic drivers produce the detailed soundstage associated with open-back listening, while the open housing improves airflow around the earcups compared with sealed, closed-back alternatives that trap more heat during long sessions.

That focus on comfort extends to the build itself, with the ATH-AL5NC weighing 240 grams, so listeners can wear these headphones for hours without a break.

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Wireless use is backed by a battery life of up to a massive 75 hours, and a 15-minute charge restores up to 8 hours of playback when the battery does run flat.

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A multipoint pairing function keeps the headphones linked to two Bluetooth devices at the same time, while support for LDAC enables 24-bit/96kHz high-resolution audio over a wireless connection.

If you choose to use the headphones through a wired and not wireless connection, the Audio-Technica includes a 1.2 metre cable with a 3.5mm stereo mini-plug and its own in-line microphone, while the headphones’ built-in microphone covers calls made over Bluetooth.

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Beyond the hardware, the A-T Connect mobile app extends the ATH-AL5NC with a low-latency mode for gaming and video, an EQ, and a soundscape function that layers ambient sounds over music for focus or relaxation.

A noise-reduction function sits on the right earcup and stays active even when listeners plug in the supplied cable. The app also unlocks a Sound Leakage Reduction mode aimed at open-back headphones used in shared spaces, though Audio-Technica notes that leakage cannot be eliminated entirely at higher volumes and that the mode does alter the sonic signature of the headphones.

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The ATH-AL5NC is available now, priced at £219 / €249 / $279 / $499 AU dollars. We don’t see many wireless open-back headphones aside from the Grado GW100x, which still command a price of £249 / $279 despite launching several years ago, so these less headphones could give Grado more of a robust challenge.

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Massachusetts became the latest state to force data centers to bring their own power, but this time there’s a twist. A new state mandate would require developers building data centers larger than 25 megawatts to provide clean power or pay into a ratepayer protection fund.

Gov. Maura Healey’s executive order is the latest example of states turning against data centers. Just a few years ago, tech companies and data center developers were showered with incentives to locate facilities in a particular state. Now, they’re fighting a groundswell of public opposition as politicians seek to show voters they’re addressing their concerns.

Under Healey’s order, data centers larger than 25 megawatts of peak demand will have to bring their own power and guarantee that it adheres to the state’s clean energy requirements. Healey would prefer that they generate the clean power onsite, too. If not, they’ll need to fund the construction of new generation nearby or pay into a ratepayer protection fund.

Massachusetts is also directing communities to “avoid signing non-disclosure agreements,” according to the executive order. To give regulators time to implement the new restrictions, the governor is pausing applications for a data center sales tax exemption that went into effect last month.

Healey said data centers must meet the Massachusetts clean energy standard enshrined in state law, although it comes with some added strength. The state’s clean energy standard dictates that industry only generate a portion of their power using approved sources like wind, solar, and hydro. In 2030, for example, those sources must contribute at least 40% of the total. The amount varies by year, and it ratchets up over time. But the governor’s office clarified that data centers will be required to meet 100% of its electricity demand with clean energy generation.

With the new restrictions, Massachusetts becomes the third state in as many months to rein in data center development.

In August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that all new data centers in the state would need to submit to audits by the public utility commission and the grid operator, ERCOT. In July, New York’s governor stopped construction of new data centers 50 megawatts or larger. 

With public sentiment shifting against data centers, the tech industry is starting to push back. Pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future — which is funded by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Greg Brockman — is buying ads that seek to sway voters in battleground states ahead of midterm elections.

Update: This article was updated with information from the Massachusetts governor’s office that clarified the executive order will require data centers to meet 100% of its electricity demand with clean energy generation.