New York froze new data centers for a year, and TeraWulf just became the day's biggest loser because of it. Nebius, close behind, has nothing to do with New York.

By Dennis Singleton · Markets Writer · July 14, 2026

Key points

Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order today pausing New York state permits for any new data center using 50 megawatts or more, for up to a year while the state writes new rules.
TeraWulf (WULF) fell 6.7% today, the biggest move in the entire group. Its Lake Mariner campus in Barker, New York is exactly the kind of project the order targets, and the company already warned in its own filings that this exact law could hurt its expansion plans.
Digital Realty (DLR) fell about 2%, roughly double the move in Equinix (EQIX). Digital Realty owns two landmark data center buildings actually inside Manhattan, giving it real New York City property to worry about.
Nebius (NBIS) fell 6.1%, close behind TeraWulf but for an unrelated reason, and CoreWeave (CRWV) fell 3.8%. Neither owns property inside New York state. Their pressure traces to Meta's cloud ambitions and heavy insider selling instead.
CleanSpark (CLSK) jumped about 9% the same day on an unrelated Georgia data center lease, showing the difference comes down to each company's own exposure, not the sector as a whole.
All of this happened on a day the June CPI report came in cooler than expected, which lifted most of the market but did not save the data center group.

Cooler inflation was supposed to be the good news today. It was, for most of the market. Chip stocks bounced, the Nasdaq 100 climbed, and the Kospi closed green in Seoul. Data center stocks did not get the memo, and the reason is more specific than one headline can carry.

New York just froze new data centers for a year

Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order today creating the first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers in the country. The order pauses state environmental permits for any project pulling 50 megawatts or more at peak demand, for up to a year, while regulators write a permanent framework covering energy use, water use, and the strain on the power grid. Hochul framed it plainly: data center growth was threatening to raise utility bills for everyone else in the state, and she wanted rules in place before more projects broke ground.

The bill behind this order actually passed the state legislature back on June 3. Today's executive order is Hochul making it real. That gap between passage and signing gave one company a running start on the bad news, and it used the time to say so publicly.

TeraWulf saw this coming, and said so in writing

TeraWulf (WULF) fell 6.7% today, the single biggest move in this entire group, and it is also the one name with a direct, disclosed reason to fall. The company runs its Lake Mariner campus in Barker, New York, a former coal plant site it has been converting into an AI and high performance computing facility. TeraWulf has an active buildout planned there, described in its own filings as its "HPC/AI Transition and planned Niagara Facility Upgrades."

When the moratorium bill passed the legislature in June, TeraWulf told investors directly that the law, if signed, "could have material adverse effects" on that exact project. It named the bill and named the facility, in a public filing, months before the order was actually signed.

Digital Realty owns real New York property too

Digital Realty (DLR) fell about 2% today, more than double the move in its closest peer. The stock did not drift down evenly either. It dropped hard for about ten minutes around 10am ET, right in the window the Hochul signing hit the wires, then partly recovered through the rest of the session.

The reason Digital Realty has more riding on this than a typical diversified landlord comes down to two buildings most people have never heard of by name but have used the internet through anyway. The company owns 111 8th Avenue and 60 Hudson Street, two of Manhattan's oldest and most connected carrier hotel buildings, both physically inside New York City. The moratorium only pauses permits for new large data centers, so nothing already built and running is at risk. It is still a real signal that any future New York expansion just got harder, and Digital Realty is one of the few names in this group with an actual New York City address to worry about.

Nebius and CoreWeave are falling for a different reason

Nebius (NBIS) fell 6.1% today, close behind TeraWulf but for a completely different reason, and CoreWeave (CRWV) fell 3.8%. Neither company owns a flagship project inside New York state. Nebius's major US buildout is in Vineland, New Jersey, where it is delivering dedicated AI capacity to Microsoft. CoreWeave's Northeast presence also runs through New Jersey.

Nebius has spent the past several sessions dealing with reports that Meta is building its own AI cloud computing business, a new competitor in the same neocloud market Nebius and CoreWeave both sell into. Nebius insiders have been selling into that weakness too. Regulatory filings this week put the total near $23 million, with CEO Arkadiy Volozh accounting for roughly half of it and two other senior executives selling the rest. None of it traces back to Albany.

Equinix's "New York" campus is mostly in New Jersey

Equinix (EQIX) fell about 1.2% today, a real move but smaller than Digital Realty's. Equinix's flagship New York market data centers, the ones actually branded NY1 through NY7, mostly sit in Secaucus and Newark, both in New Jersey, the same naming pattern that keeps CoreWeave's own "New York" facility out of Albany's reach too. Equinix does hold some real New York state property, but its biggest New York branded campus by far sits across the river.

CleanSpark went the other way

If this were a blanket data center selloff, every name in the group would be red. CleanSpark (CLSK) jumped about 9% the same day, on a 20 year, $6.6 billion lease it signed with an unnamed technology company at its Sandersville, Georgia campus. Georgia has no moratorium. CleanSpark's news was good, and the stock traded like it. Vertiv (VRT), which sells the cooling and power equipment data centers need rather than owning the buildings itself, fell about 1.5%, a smaller move that fits a company selling into every state at once rather than betting on one.

The lesson in the spread

Group every AI infrastructure stock into one basket and today looks like confusion, a sector that ignored good economic news. Look at the actual real estate and it makes sense. TeraWulf and Digital Realty both have real New York property, upstate and in Manhattan, and both felt it today, TeraWulf hardest of all. CleanSpark rose because Georgia handed it a $6.6 billion tenant instead. Nebius and CoreWeave also fell hard, for reasons that predate today's news by several sessions and have nothing to do with Albany. The moratorium is a genuine new risk for the two companies actually standing in New York, and today the market treated it as one. Not every big mover in this group had anything to do with it.

Prices are intraday, taken around noon ET on July 14, 2026, and will move before the close.

Photo: Marc A. Hermann / Metropolitan Transportation Authority, CC BY 2.0, cropped.

Frequently asked questions

What did New York's data center moratorium actually do?

Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order on July 14, 2026 pausing state environmental permits for any new data center project using 50 megawatts or more of power at peak demand. The pause lasts up to a year while state regulators write permanent rules covering energy use, water use, and grid impact. It does not affect data centers already built and operating.

Why did TeraWulf (WULF) stock fall on the moratorium news?

TeraWulf runs its Lake Mariner data center campus in Barker, New York, and has an active buildout planned there that it calls its HPC/AI Transition and Niagara Facility Upgrades. When the underlying bill passed the state legislature in June 2026, TeraWulf told investors directly that the law could have material adverse effects on that specific project. The stock fell about 6.7% the day Governor Hochul signed the order, the largest move of any stock in the group.

Why did Digital Realty (DLR) stock fall more than Equinix (EQIX)?

Digital Realty owns two landmark data center buildings actually located in Manhattan, 111 8th Avenue and 60 Hudson Street, giving it real New York City property exposed to future state regulation. Equinix's New York branded data centers, numbered NY1 through NY7, mostly sit across the river in Secaucus and Newark, New Jersey. Digital Realty fell about 2% on July 14, 2026, roughly double Equinix's 1.2% move.

Are Nebius and CoreWeave affected by the New York moratorium?

Not directly. Nebius's major US data center is in Vineland, New Jersey, and CoreWeave's Northeast presence also runs through New Jersey rather than New York state. Both stocks fell on July 14, 2026, Nebius by about 6.1% and CoreWeave by about 3.8%, but for separate reasons: Nebius has faced pressure from reports of Meta building a competing AI cloud business and from heavy insider stock sales, while CoreWeave has been under pressure from the same broader neocloud weakness.

Why did CleanSpark (CLSK) stock rise the same day other data center stocks fell?

CleanSpark's move was unrelated to New York. The stock jumped about 9% on July 14, 2026 after news of a 20-year, roughly $6.6 billion data center lease signed with an unnamed technology company at its Sandersville, Georgia campus. Georgia has no comparable moratorium, so the news drove the stock independently of the New York story.

Dennis Singleton · Markets Writer

Dennis Singleton has followed the markets closely for years and still finds them genuinely fascinating. He writes about stocks, AI, and semiconductors in plain language, cuts through the hype, and is straight about the risks as well as the upside. He does this because he wants readers to win.