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By Mehdi Paryavi
Founder and CEO of the International Data Center Authority (IDCA)
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Northern Virginia is home to the world’s densest concentration of data centers. But as the AI revolution accelerates, major tech firms are quietly looking outside of the existing “digital map” in search of larger power capacities, and potentially cheaper land, to facilitate their growth—bringing the benefits of playing host to the most important infrastructure of the modern age to more of the U.S.
While communities in their sights may feel trepidation at this prospect, it’s important to address misinformation and take lessons from Northern Virginia, in order the realize the positive benefits of the “great data center shift.”
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First, let’s look at Loudoun County, a small suburb in the region that has been transformed due to its role in the data center revolution, turning a struggling economy into one of the strongest in the country and creating thousands of jobs. The bad news? Once a sleepy backwater, it now consumes more power than Denmark—roughly 4.9 gigawatts, a figure that has tripled in six years. The region that built the world’s data center backbone is now both a model and cautionary tale.
Electricity shortages, community pushback and grid strain that “data center alley” has faced forces the industry to rethink how AI’s power needs will be met. From Georgia and Ohio to Montana, Arizona and even Miami, new “AI factories” are emerging in places offering cheaper land, energy resource and fewer regulatory hurdles. Amazon Web Services is investing another $10 billion in Ohio. Google is building in Arkansas. And Tract recently acquired 2,100 acres in Arizona for one of the largest data center campuses in the country. AI is redrawing America’s digital map.
Distribute Wealth, Reduce Risk
So what makes a region attractive for data center developers? To put it simply, abundant power is central, followed by a low risk of natural disasters, connectivity and access to human talent. Proximity to major metropolitan areas is therefore important, but data centers can also create new communities from scratch.
Distributing data centers across the country lowers latency, bringing faster services at lower costs to more Americans. It spreads economic development, creating wealth far beyond Silicon Valley or Northern Virginia. Loudoun County’s transformation is proof. Property prices have soared with data center land being sold at $6 million an acre in recent deals, and the local economy is so robust that citizens enjoy tax breaks thanks to data center revenue.
From a national security perspective, diversification reduces risk. Concentrating critical infrastructure in one region is a vulnerability; spreading it out makes America’s digital infrastructure more resilient (AWS’ recent outage is a case in point). It also helps balance power demand, so the cost of producing data in Texas isn’t paid by someone in Virginia.
Despite the benefits, the negatives—founded and unfounded—are standing in the way of progression. Misconceptions are rife.
The Environmental Question
The U.S. is home to 44 percent of the world’s data centers (calculated by IDCA research from World Bank metadata), but produces just 22 percent of the emissions of China and India when measured across the efficiency and productivity of their economies. Arguably, data centers are improving the efficiency of the nation’s economy overall, proving that data center-powered societies can actually be cleaner, since they depend more on automation. Data centers are not simply running to serve themselves; they’re running to serve other industries—health care, manufacturing and so on—bringing about more efficient and less wasteful operations.
The carbon footprint of data centers themselves are improving constantly—chips are becoming less power hungry, cooling is becoming more efficient and in California, heat created as a by-product is even being used to provide heating and hot water to local residents.
Policy and the Path Forward
Federal policy is beginning to catch up. President Donald Trump’s executive order to accelerate permitting for data center infrastructure signals that AI readiness is becoming as important as GDP in defining economic strength. According to economist Jason Furman, once you subtract AI and data centers, the U.S. economy barely grew at all in the first half of 2025. There is a lot riding on America’s ability to meet the data center challenge—for as long as we continue to ask Chat GPT for all the answers and use our GPS for every journey, the demand for data center capacity will continue. Data centers are simply enablers of humanity’s demand, not the driver.
And don’t be fooled by talk of the “AI bubble.” This technology hasn’t even begun to unveil itself. Lack of data center infrastructure and power is currently holding things back. Every data center land purchase is backed by an off-taker and signed contracts—nothing about this marketplace is speculative or short-term. The challenge is not just to build more data centers, but to build them wisely, equitably and sustainably.
Mehdi Paryavi is the founder and CEO of the International Data Center Authority (IDCA), the world's leading digital economy think tank.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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