TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Two bills passed unanimously by the Florida Senate Thursday that would regulate massive data centers that are coming to Florida — and deal with a possible penny shortage.

Senate Bill 484 would give local governments authority to oversee the location, planning, and zoning of future data centers. A similar House bill passed the House Commerce Committee Thursday.

Data centers are giant complexes that house servers to process AI. There are plans for a data center in Palm Beach County. On Wednesday night, opponents packed a meeting there to say it will lead to a spike in power bills and adversely affect the environment.

And the full Senate passed a price-rounding bill which addresses a possible “one-cent shortage” now that the U.S. Mint is no longer producing pennies.

This morning, the full Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 1074. A companion bill in the House on the penny is ready for a full House vote.

Here’s how it works: if the final digit is one or two cents, the total cost rounds down to zero cents. If the final digit is three, four, six, or seven cents, it rounds to five cents. If the final digit is eight or nine cents, it rounds to ten cents.

Sales tax would be calculated before the rounding.

Florida lawmakers tackle AI data centers, penny shortage

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