Google says it hopes to break ground on its Botetourt County data center campus in the upcoming months. The company has filed construction permits and hopes to start grading work in the spring or summer...

In a joint letter sent to the Energy Information Administration Thursday morning, seen by WIRED, Hawley and Warren press the agency to publicly collect “comprehensive, annual energy-use disclosures” on data centers.

Now, with a 60-day legislative session in the rearview mirror as of March 14, newly elected Gov. Abigail Spanberger and lawmakers in her party look primed to deliver on that pledge in spades.

The torrential wave of data center construction for artificial intelligence has seemed unstoppable. But lately, zoning commissions and county councils across the country have been resisting... denying permits and withdrawing tax breaks at a rate that is forcing companies like Google, Microsoft and Meta to take a different tack.

When Paul McDonald learned last month that a massive power transmission line was proposed to run through his property, first he was stunned. Then he took action. McDonald, a software developer in Orange County, began organizing online opposition to Valley Link Transmission’s proposed 765-kilovolt line that would run 115 miles through nine counties, from Campbell to Culpeper, to deliver more electricity to Northern Virginia.

US Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce a bill Wednesday that aims to put a national moratorium on data center construction “until legislation is enacted that safeguards the public from the dangers of artificial intelligence.” While it’s highly unlikely that the bill will pass, the bill marks a new line in the sand for progressives seeking to address both concern around data center construction and the potential harms artificial intelligence may bring.

The debate over data centers in Virginia is as fierce as ever, with lawmakers remaining split over eliminating a sales and use tax exemption in the state budget. Democratic State Senator Creigh Deeds, a leading proponent of eliminating the sales tax, tells 29News that the estimated fiscal impact when the state passed it was about $1.5 million. Now, he says, it’s nearing $2 billion, money that he wants to see flowing into the state to pay for other services.

Localities in the so-called "Gateway Region" are actively courting data center projects that they fear could slip away if the General Assembly agrees to a Senate proposal to repeal a 16-year sales and use tax exemption on computer equipment that has made Virginia the center of the global industry, primarily in affluent Northern Virginia.

From community members to local government officials, people across Central Virginia are fighting against a proposed $1 billion transmission line project that would slice through roughly 115 miles of land. “Not only will it destroy our way of life, it will degrade the value of generations down the road,” said Curtis Gish, who lives in Orange County.

Developers are especially excited, he says, about land adjacent to national parks. “We have been successful at fighting off other developments there in the past, and so you have large swaths of open space that don’t have other things on them," Hart explains.

A neighborhood in Ashburn, Virginia, is suddenly finding itself in the headlines after word got out homeowners were being offered $4 million each to sell for data center development. But some residents say that headline doesn’t at all represent an accurate picture of the quandry they face.

The proposal, which Gov. Abigail Spanberger recently talked about, is to tax data centers based on how much electricity they use. Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick County, says this should be a tiered system with lower tax rates in rural areas to encourage data centers to locate in rural areas that want them.

Imagine what it would be like if you had a helicopter hovering over your neighborhood all day and night? Residents say that's kind of what it sounds like at a data center in the Ashburn, Virginia, area. News4 learned it is one of several CloudHQ data centers in the area. News4 measured the sound using an app, and it hit 90 decibels — a level considered high and requires ear protection if there is sustained exposure.

Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen has introduced legislation to impose a yearlong moratorium on data center development in the city. Cohen expressed concerns that the energy-intensive data centers could drive up utility costs for residents already struggling with high bills.

Opposition to a proposed data center in Berkeley County drew a full house of more than 500 people Friday, as residents filled Spring Mills High School’s auditorium to voice concerns over the project’s potential impact. The facility would be the first designated “high-impact” data center under House Bill 2014, a law passed last year that allows qualifying projects to operate under state authority, bypassing local zoning regulations.

The U.S. Department of Energy's information arm will launch a series of pilot surveys on Wednesday aimed at ​gauging the energy use of the country's data centers. "It really is a data exploration exercise ​to figure out what exactly is going on in this very important part of the economy that we don't have a lot of visibility into," Energy Information ​Administration head Tristan Abbey said at the CERAWeek conference in Houston.

As Virginia's data center industry booms, its demands for land, water, and electricity continue to grow. The National Parks Conservation Association has published a report about how this development threatens the mid-Atlantic region's natural resources.

The plaintiffs in the ongoing legal challenge against the Wilderness Crossing development in eastern Orange County held a pre-hearing ZOOM call Monday morning to bring everyone up to speed. A hearing has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Friday in Orange County Circuit Court.

In an effort to tackle rising electricity rates connected to the expansion of data centers, a recently proposed Pennsylvania rate case settlement includes provisions to protect residential and small business customers from shouldering the burden of costs associated with building the new facilities. Consumer advocates say it could serve as a model for reining in rising rates across the state.

Planning commissioners did not give their blessing for the Remington Technology Park to build its own gas-fired power plant. Rezoning to allow the Remington-area data center project was approved eight years ago, but PointOne Data Centers has yet to build the planned six-building site as it waits for Virginia’s power grid to catch up — which developers say won't happen until at least 2030.

The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) has ordered its staff to open an investigation by April 23, 2026 into methods that will protect consumers from undue cost burdens related to distribution system improvements necessary to connect proposed data centers to the grid.

Tensions are mounting over Valley Link’s proposed Joshua Falls-Yeat project, a $1 billion, 765-kilovolt transmission line which would cut through 115 miles of largely agricultural land and forests in central Virginia.

Green said it’s residential customers who are paying for the costs of new infrastructure to satisfy that increasing demand. “Bills are also currently going up because of the additional rider that was put onto customers' bills this month to pay for a $1.47 billion gas plant,” she said.

Data Center Dynamics reports Regency residents are being offered over $4 million per acre to sell their properties to data center developers. According to the report, developers are hoping to build six data centers in the community off Waxpool Road...

The latest at the center of controversy is a three-billion-dollar hyperscale data center campus on 452 acres of land in Appomattox County. Project Hercules is set to be constructed by AVAIO Digital at 267 Industrial Park Ln. in Appomattox. Many who live near the data center site are questioning the move, including Robin Foutz, who lives about a mile and a half away. "It's just beautiful out here, the peacefulness of it. I don't want that robbed," she said.