Virginia creates an AI task force and a data centre accountability plan
Governor Spanberger's order cites workforce displacement, data privacy and cybersecurity, in the state carrying the largest concentration of data centres.
Governor Abigail Spanberger signed an executive order on Friday creating an artificial intelligence task force for Virginia, together with what her office describes as a data centre accountability plan.
The order cites workforce displacement, data privacy and cybersecurity as the concerns prompting it. Virginia carries the largest concentration of data centres in the United States, which makes the second element the more consequential of the two.
Data centre siting has become contested in the state over electricity demand, water use and the load new capacity places on the grid. An accountability plan implies reporting requirements, though the order does not yet set out what operators would have to disclose.
California moved the same day on a different question, with Governor Newsom ordering a study of a shutdown mechanism for frontier models. The two orders address opposite ends of the problem, one the physical build-out and the other the models themselves.
Neither imposes a binding requirement yet. Both are instructions to study and report, which is where state AI policy currently sits while federal rules remain unsettled.