Beyond Washington’s densely populated western suburbs, the vistas widen to open expanses of fields and farmland—a panorama often interrupted by massive, windowless buildings that house the high-speed computers that power technologies like 5G and artificial intelligence.
These data centers are starting to pop up all over the country, from Virginia to Oregon. Each has hundreds of servers and routers that send and receive data for everyday tasks, such as streaming content on mobile devices and handling quick financial transactions.
“It’s the engine that drives the machine,” said Gordon Dolven, director of data center research in America for CBRE, a commercial real estate services company. “Everything on your phone is stored somewhere within four walls.”
In recent years, the need for data centers has grown rapidly, fueled by changing work habits during the pandemic and the growth of cloud-based technologies. That means more buildings, more land, more cooling systems and more electricity to support the physical infrastructure that runs 24/7.
Advancements in technology will only increase demand for data centers, said Noelle Walsh, corporate vice president for cloud innovation and operations at Microsoft. “As a society, we are just getting started,” she added.
But finding enough land to build a data center and enough electricity to run it can be a challenge. And developers need to address community concerns about these colossal buildings, which are popping up next to housing developments and straining local electricity suppliers that have struggled to meet demand.
Northern Virginia is a major data center hub, in part because of its proximity to large pieces of physical infrastructure that are the foundation of the Internet. Amazon this year announced plans to build multiple data centers in Virginia by 2040, an investment estimated at $35 billion.
On the west coast, a similar hub is located near Silicon Valley. Most of the world’s Internet traffic passes through the sites in these two regions, which act as critical Internet transport links.
Industry analysts say there is a growing need to build data centers across the rest of the country as part of an effort to bring them closer to customers and take advantage of the increasing availability of high-speed networks in rural areas and smaller cities.
The United States will have 2,701 data centers in 2022, the largest number in the world, followed by Germany, a distant second, and Britain and China, according to data compiled by Statista. In addition to the two coastal hubs, US data centers are concentrated near major cities, from Atlanta to Seattle.
Large digital companies and the federal government often own and operate their own data centers. Other companies and governments often rent space.
“Anyone who can move into someone else’s data center will,” said Jim Coakley, who develops, owns, and manages high-security, high-density data centers. He built his first one almost 20 years ago in Northern Virginia.
Loudoun County, Virginia, is a major data center location, but nearby Prince William County is also experiencing a boom. Elected officials there recently approved a major zoning change for 2,100 acres, paving the way for about 25 million square feet of new data centers.
The zoning ordinance is not undisputed. The land, known as the Digital Gateway, is close to the Manassas National Battlefield Park, whose superintendent has expressed concern about “possible irreversible damage” to the site. Ann Wheeler, chair of the Prince William Board of Supervisors and a strong supporter of the zoning change, lost her reelection in the Democratic primary last week after a grassroots campaign to oust her and stressed her support for more data centers.
According to research from IT consultancy Gartner, data centers will continue to be built farther from some traditional locations and closer to the customers they serve. But the search for land is not always easy.
“Trying to find qualified ground sites that have enough power to support these facilities – you need 10 times what I built in 2006,” Mr Coakley said. “They’re essentially breathing in huge amounts of energy.”
The demand for data centers is so great that once you’re on the drawing board, the space is snapped up quickly, even before it hits the market.
“Every building that is built is being rented,” said Ryan Goeller, a commercial real estate broker and principal at KLNB specializing in Northern Virginia. “There is no vacancy.”
Still, energy demand is hampering growth in some parts of the country. Dominion Energy, Virginia’s main electric utility used by data centers, has said it is struggling to provide enough power. Some residents fear that the needs of data centers in the area, such as the construction of new power lines and substations, could be subsidized by residents. Silicon Valley faces similar challenges, according to a February report from CBRE.
To reduce energy demand, the industry is trying to find greater efficiency, said Arman Shehabi, a staff scientist in the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
“There’s been a lot of growth, but there’s a lot of opportunity for efficiency and incentives for efficiency,” he said. And as major players in the data industry strive to go green in the next decade, the pressure is on.
The growth of artificial intelligence “requires new kinds of efficiency,” said Dr. Shehabi. “At the moment it consumes a lot of electricity, but it is not clear whether it will continue to do so.”
The need for electricity and the availability of skilled electricians will drive many data center location decisions by 2022, according to CBRE.
Other environmental concerns also loom. Data center backup systems often rely on natural gas and diesel, which can thwart clean energy efforts. The need for water is also increasing, Dr. Shehabi said.
“We have to be strategic in terms of where we place data centers and consider the water stress level of the area when designing it,” he said.
And developers encounter resistance from neighbors. Alex Holt, a newly retired first-grade teacher who lives in Gainesville, Virginia, was surprised one morning when a large wall appeared marking the beginning of a data center just a few feet from her mansion. A developer had promised to build a city center. “Years went by and there was nothing.”
The community was eventually told that the plan for the city center would be replaced by a data center, but Ms Holt said she did not understand the scope of the project at the time. And then this year, “I looked out my front door and to the left there’s this huge wall, and that’s when I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is unbelievable,'” she said.
But others see an advantage in the data centers. They have provided substantial business for the construction industry and electricians in particular.
The jobs pay about $75 an hour and offer a retirement plan that is a relic of the past in many industries, said Joe Dabbs, a business manager for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26, which represents workers in Washington, D.C., Maryland and a large part of Virginia. Half the work on data centers, he estimated, is done by electricians.
“We work multi-shifts seven days a week,” he said.
