New York State government has cancelled its plan to build a US$100m data center that would become home for infrastructure in four older facilities. The plan was thrown out in favor of establishing regional economic development councils that would compete for funds previously earmarked for the data center project, according to a report by The Business Review.

Morris Peters, spokesman for the state's budget division, told the news service that state officials had "decided that it was too costly and that it wasn't the right time" to start the data center project.

The data center would be built in Utica, consolidating the current data centers located in Albany County.

State governor Andrew Cuomo's plan to create 10 economic development councils was included in the latest version of the next fiscal year's budget. The councils will compete for the $100m freed up by the scrapped data center project and an additional $30m to fund activities to support private-sector projects.

The plan to consolidate data centers into a facility in Utica dates as far back as 2006, the year when funds were first appropriated for it. The Business Review reported in October of that year that the project stemmed from political deal officials cut, following the state's commitment of more than $1bn in incentives for AMD to build a processor manufacturing plant in Malta.

The project faced opposition then from a union of government workers and from Albany County officials because it threatened to take data center jobs out of the county by relocating the four existing data centers.