In-depth Investigation: The Chaos, Truth, and Lies Behind 1,240 Data Centers in the United States

Major tech companies are building data centers at an unprecedented pace, with more than 2 data centers rising every week in the United States alone. Data centers are the engines of AI's rapid growth and store photos, videos, and social network information; however, there is almost no official record showing how many of these facilities exist, where they are located, and who controls them.

To answer these questions, American media outlet Business Insider's investigative reporters decided to create a map of data centers across the U.S. by examining public records of backup generator applications for data centers, state by state, to gradually reveal those data centers that have long been hidden under the definition of "trade secrets."

The investigation yielded shocking results: as of 2024, there are up to 1,240 large data centers built or approved for construction in the U.S., a number that has increased by nearly 300% over the past 15 years.

These data centers, surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, are concentrated in areas like Virginia and Arizona, with power and water resources sufficient to rival an entire city, placing immense pressure on local environments and infrastructure.

Large data centers can consume over 2 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually, enough to supply 200,000 households for a year. Furthermore, 43% of data centers are built in areas of high or extreme water scarcity and use drinking water for cooling.

In response to the enormous energy pressure brought by data centers, many regions have delayed plans to adopt clean energy and need to invest tens of billions to even hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade infrastructure. By 2039, electricity rates in Virginia could rise by more than 50% due to related construction.

Even more concerning is that data centers are often located close to residential areas to access more reliable infrastructure. Business Insider's reporters first arrived in Loudoun County, Virginia, known as the "Silicon Valley of Data Centers," where data centers have significantly impacted people's daily lives.

Documentary link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8TDOFqkQA&t

01. Residential areas are only a hundred meters away from data centers, with some homes surrounded by data centers

One-third of global internet traffic passes through Virginia. Loudoun County in the state has the highest density of data centers in the world, with 329 data centers consuming a quarter of the state's electricity.

At first glance, it appears to be an ordinary American suburb, but from above, the massive white server rooms are neatly arranged, resembling modern factories

Technology companies choose this place because there is reliable electricity, abundant water sources, tax incentives, and cheap land. However, these advantages also mean that data centers are often just a wall away from residential communities.

Loudoun County, located in Northern Virginia, is the most densely populated area in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area and one of the fastest-growing regions in the United States. Data centers are being rapidly and massively constructed here.

Donna Gallant is one of those affected by the construction of data centers. She has lived quietly in Prince William County, Northern Virginia, for 30 years, is the fourth homeowner on her street, and has witnessed the development of the area.

In 2021, Google built a data center just 750 meters from her home. Since then, the nighttime noise has caused her anxiety and sleeplessness, forcing her to leave her second-floor bedroom and go downstairs, wearing noise-canceling headphones to sleep.

She tried to seek information about the data center from on-site staff and government officials but only received the response: "We signed a confidentiality agreement and cannot discuss it."

Worse yet, this is just the beginning. In the coming years, more data centers will emerge around Donna's community. A piece of land originally designated for housing was rezoned in 2023 for industrial use, paving the way for the construction of data centers. There, a 75-foot (approximately 22.8 meters) tall data center is now being prepared, facing the residential area.

Prince William County currently has more than 70 data centers, and if the overall plan is fully realized, along with neighboring Loudoun County, this area will have more data centers than the entire Russia.

Donna attempted to legally challenge the rezoning, but the lawsuit was dismissed. She believes that the world does need data centers, but building them next to people's homes is wrong.

Similar stories are emerging across the United States. Carlos Lianes, a resident of Manassas, Virginia, measures the noise from the Amazon data center at his doorstep every day and shares it with local residents' organizations. He said, "You can not only hear these sounds but also feel them directly." The source of the aforementioned noise is the cooling system of the data center. In many data centers, large cooling systems extract hot air and circulate it through air conditioning units to achieve cooling. The most common cooling method is to use cold water to absorb heat and release it through cooling towers, with the cooling systems and fans producing a continuous humming sound.

▲ These square boxes are the cooling systems of the data center.

The noise level is usually below the limits allowed by the government for industrial areas near residential zones. However, the buildings in these residential areas were not designed to accommodate the constant humming of modern data centers.

Low-frequency vibrations even caused Carlos's windows to shake, he had to spend $20,000 to replace them with soundproof windows, yet he still couldn't sleep well. The nighttime humming troubled him and his 7-year-old son, who even thought there was a "spaceship" outside. For a time, Carlos even organized for his family to move to the basement to escape the vibrations.

After the residents' committee and local authorities intervened, the data center operator initially tried to reduce the noise by placing materials around the fans on the roof of the building. These measures ultimately did not yield results, and the operator replaced the fans themselves and installed higher exhaust outlets.

After these improvements, the noise level did decrease, but Carlos and his neighbors claimed they could still feel the vibrations from the data center.

Carlos stated that he does not oppose the construction of data centers but believes that such constructions should not cross the red line—meaning they should not be too close to residential areas, schools, etc. Unfortunately, in the coming years, more data centers will be put into operation in Carlos's community.

Amazon responded that its noise is "far below the regulatory standards," but the physical and mental impacts felt by residents can no longer be ignored. The American Public Health Association warns that long-term noise exposure may lead to cardiovascular diseases and mental health issues.

02. Unveiling the Mystery of Data Centers through Licenses: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google Rank in the Top Three

How many data centers are affecting the lives of local residents? Which companies should be held accountable for this?

Currently, there is no complete public directory of data centers in the United States, no official map, and no dedicated regulatory agency to provide answers. The more common result of trying to obtain information through the Freedom of Information Act is redacted files or refusals citing "trade secrets."

▲ Documents related to data centers are often heavily redacted.

Business Insider's investigative reporters took a different approach and found that almost all data centers have one thing in common: backup generators, used to keep data centers running during grid failures. Installing generators requires applying for air quality permits, so the team decided to start from this breakthrough.

They submitted public records requests one by one in each state, seeking all air quality permits issued to data centers. The permit documents indicate the capacity of the generators, which can be used to estimate the power consumption scale of the data centers, and often provide clues about the true owners of the data centers.

▲ Some air quality permits obtained by Business Insider

For example, near Columbus, Ohio, at least 164 backup generator permit applications were submitted by a company called Magellan Enterprises LLC. However, after digging deeper into the official records, reporters found that it actually belongs to Google.

Business Insider's investigative reporters tracked down hundreds of similar leads, ultimately creating the most comprehensive statistics on U.S. data centers to date.

Data shows that in the past 15 years, the construction of data centers in the United States has entered a period of rapid development, with several major clusters emerging. Northern Virginia and Maricopa County in Arizona are the areas with the highest density of data centers.

This chart shows the explosive growth of data centers in the United States over the past 20 years. In 2010, there were 311 data centers built or approved for construction in the U.S., while in 2024, this number is expected to reach 1,240, almost four times that of 2010.

By the end of 2024, among the data centers that have obtained construction permits, Amazon has 177, followed by Microsoft, Google, Meta, and QTS (a data center solutions provider under Blackstone Group).

Computing equipment itself requires a large amount of electricity, and the cooling systems and water pumps of the buildings also need power. The largest data centers can consume over 2 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually, enough to supply 200,000 households Electricity is only part of the problem. The cooling systems of data centers require a large amount of water. In areas rich in water resources, this is not an issue, but in water-scarce regions like Arizona in the United States, the situation is completely different.

The image below shows the site selection for a new data center in Arizona, the only way this data center obtains water is through well drilling.

Extreme drought is sweeping across Arizona. The state's main water source is the Colorado River, which has seen a 20% reduction in flow since 2000. Therefore, every drop of water is crucial as this river flows through Arizona.

However, when Business Insider overlaid previously created maps of data centers, they found that a large number of data centers are pouring into these drought-stricken areas. Cheap electricity may be one of the driving factors behind this behavior.

For example, Microsoft built its first data center in the region in 2019, and six years later, there are already five Microsoft data centers in the area, with another new Microsoft data center under construction.

These data centers located on the outskirts of towns are actually built on plowed farmland. From the permit documents, it can be seen that this new cluster built by Microsoft could be very large, with a total of 280 generators and a total capacity of nearly 800,000 kilowatts.

Documents show that Microsoft expects each data center to use 3.79 million liters of water per day, which amounts to 6.936 billion liters of water per year, equivalent to the annual water consumption of a city with a population of 61,000.

Investigations found that 43% of large data centers are located in areas of high or extreme water scarcity, and these data centers use drinking water. Amazon has 45.76% of its data centers located in areas of high water scarcity, while Microsoft's proportion reaches 52.27%.

The water consumption of data centers is also considered a trade secret. However, Business Insider managed to obtain more than 50 relevant data points. For example, Google's data center in Midlothian, Texas, consumed 610 million liters of water in 2023; The Kindred data center in Colorado consumed 320 million liters of water in the same year.

In Arizona, water is strictly regulated, whether sourced from the Colorado River or through groundwater extraction. However, local municipal authorities can decide how to use their water quotas, and many areas in the state have little to prevent businesses from drilling wells.

Many tech companies have committed to achieving "water positive" by 2030, meaning they will restore or save more water than they use. However, this is primarily achieved through the practice of water rights offsets, which involves paying others to conserve water on behalf of the company, failing to alleviate local resource pressures.

Complicating matters, when data centers reduce water usage and switch to air conditioning for cooling, electricity consumption significantly increases, further raising carbon emissions.

03. AI Data Centers Push the Grid to Its Limits, Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Goals Forced to Be Delayed

Although data centers are hailed as the "cornerstone of the digital economy," the economic benefits they have brought so far are limited. Even the largest data centers employ no more than 150 permanent staff, with some having fewer than 25. Nevertheless, states continue to compete to offer tax incentives.

To date, Business Insider has tracked 37 states providing tax incentives for data centers, covering tax exemptions on construction materials, equipment, and discounted water and electricity rates. Even as employment commitments repeatedly fall short, tax incentives continue to be distributed on a large scale.

Meanwhile, Meta, Google, and Microsoft plan to invest $64 billion, $75 billion, and $80 billion, respectively, by 2025 for the expansion of new facilities and equipment.

McKinsey estimates that by 2028, U.S. data centers could consume 600 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, accounting for 12% of the total electricity consumption in the United States, far exceeding the 4% in 2023, marking an unprecedented scale. These AI-driven data centers are pushing the grid to its limits.

In the face of such pressure, many power suppliers are choosing to abandon or delay plans to phase out fossil fuels. In Nebraska, the two largest power companies in the state had committed years ago to achieving net-zero emissions in electricity production by 2050. However, the data center operated by Meta in Springfield, Nebraska, consumes as much electricity as 400,000 households in a year.

To meet this demand, the state's largest utility company voted to postpone the closure of a coal-fired power plant in Omaha and plans to build two new natural gas power plants in 2025, which also means that the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 may not be achievable.

Satellite data shows that the carbon dioxide emissions from the North Omaha power plant were estimated at 300,000 kilograms per hour in June 2023.

In addition to the enormous power consumption, the backup diesel generators of data centers also emit a large amount of harmful pollutants, even if they only run for a few hours each month.

Currently, many large technology companies have announced investments in various clean energy projects, such as solar energy, wind energy, and even nuclear energy. In Pennsylvania, Microsoft has reached an agreement: when the notorious Three Mile Island nuclear power plant (which experienced a partial meltdown in 1979) resumes operations in 2027, Microsoft will purchase electricity from this nuclear power plant.

▲Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant

However, these companies often offset emissions by purchasing renewable energy credits rather than directly changing their energy structure. The problem is that the fragile and decentralized power grid may not be able to support the energy demands of data centers. If large-scale infrastructure upgrades are needed, the ultimate cost may fall on consumers.

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all claim they are willing to bear the full costs of upgrading the power grid, including high-voltage transmission lines, but there is already evidence that these costs are passed on to consumers.

In Virginia, Dominion Energy disclosed that to meet the demands of data centers and electric vehicles, its power production needs to roughly double by 2039. This expansion is expected to cost up to $103 billion, and residential electricity bills could rise by 50%.

Despite this, some states are still striving to attract data centers. In the fiscal year 2023, Virginia provided nearly $1 billion in tax breaks for 56 data center projects.

The case of New Albany, Ohio, is even more typical. In 2017, a mysterious company named Sidecat LLC promised to build two giant data centers on 300 acres of land in exchange for at least 15 years of 100% property tax exemption, valued at about $60 million. It was later revealed that it was actually a subsidiary of Meta.

04. Conclusion: The AI Construction Frenzy Continues - Who Bears the Silent Costs?

This construction frenzy under the name of AI is affecting the energy landscape, environmental ecology, and community life in the United States and around the world. However, the question is, as these giant data centers continue to grow, who truly bears the costs? The pressure on the power grid, the strain on water resources, and the social costs brought by tax incentives—these invisible costs may largely fall on ordinary residents and consumers For residents like Donna and Carlos, the choice is becoming increasingly difficult. The roar of data centers and the potential competition for electricity and water resources are forcing them to leave their homes. Donna believes that many of her neighbors are unaware of the seriousness of this issue, and she helplessly says, "It breaks my heart, but I can only fight for so long. After that, I will raise the white flag, pack my bags, and leave."

Author of this article: Chen Junda, Source: Zhi Dongxi, Original title: "In-depth Investigation: The Chaos, Truth, and Lies Behind 1,240 Data Centers"

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