Disclaimer – this is not an exhaustive list of resources. We hope to continue adding helpful links to this page.
Reports and Studies
- Report to the Governor and the General Assembly of Virginia, from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) Study, 2024.
- This study was commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly in spring 2024 after legislators rejected all proposed legislation proposals to reform the data center industry.
- Making AI Less “Thirsty”: Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models
- a study on data center water usage by Pengfei Li, Jianyi Yang, Mohammad A. Islam, Shaolei Ren
- The Unpaid Toll: Quantifying the Public Health Impact of AI
- A study on the air pollution effects of data center by Yuelin Han, Zhifeng Wu, Pengfei Li, Adam Wierman, Shaolei Ren.
- Extracting Profits from the Public: How Utility Ratepayers Are Paying for Big Tech’s Power, March 5, 2025.
- A study of ratepayer impacts of data centers by Harvard Law School
- Data centers drive buildout of gas power plants and pipelines in the Southeast, January 29, 2025.
- A study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)
- Issued Air Permits for Data Centers, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
- A searchable database of air permits issued by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for data centers, including procedural reports and guidelines
Overview and Impacts: Webinars
- The Local Impact of Data Centers with Julie Bolthouse, Piedmont Environmental Council land use director
- A one-hour webinar presented by the Ohio State University Center for Urban and Regional Affairs. January 24, 2025
- Unpaid Toll: The Health Impacts of Data Centers
- A 90-minute webinar by Nature Forward on unmitigated public health impact of data centers with Shaolei Ren. February 25, 2025
- AI consumes a lot of water — but why?
- A TED talk on Data Center water usage with Shaolei Ren. October 2024
- Your Hour With APA Virginia: Planning for the Infrastructure of the Digital Age
- A webinar presented by Piedmont Environmental Council Land Use Director Julie Bolthouse. Virginia chapter of the American Planning Association, August 28, 2023.
Articles of Interest for Communities & Locality/Municipality
Taxes and Tax Revenue
- Data Center Tax Revenue Can Be Hard to Predict – Fauquier Times, Oct. 25, 2022
- City Officials Caught Off Guard as Bank Tenant Sidesteps Millions in Data Center Taxes – Potomac Local News | May 5, 2025.
- Secret data center tenant in Manassas not subject to business property taxes – Inside NoVA | May 7, 2025
- Guest Opinon: Banking on data center tax revenue? Wait before cashing that check | Culpeper Times — Opinion | insidenova.com – Culpeper Times, March 18, 2025
- Prince William County spending nearly $500K to fight data center lawsuits – Prince William Times, Dec. 3, 2024.
Power Shortages Impacting the Industry
- Power Shortages Can Lead to “Zombie Data Centers” – Business Insider, Oct. 23, 2025.
- Data Centers Face Seven-Year Wait for Power – Bloomberg, Aug. 29, 2024 [requires a subscription to view]
Other Topics of Interest
Realities of Jobs Creation: The AI Data-Center Boom Is a Job-Creation Bust – The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 25, 2025 [requires a subscription to view]
The Electrical Grid: How Tariffs Could Shock America’s Power System – The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 20, 2025 [requires a subscription to view]
Water Supply: The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia’s water – Grist, May 8, 2024.
Air Quality: How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer – NPR, Sept. 11, 2024.
Noise & Visual Impacts: Data centers are changing the landscape. Here’s how they may affect rural Virginia – Cardinal News, March 12, 2025.
Importance of Local Zoning: Northern Virginia has more data centers than anywhere else in the world. Here’s its advice for Southside | Cardinal News, March 17, 2025.
Data Center as Bad Actors: How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer – NPR, Sept. 11, 2024.
Latest News Stories
‘Surprised by the arrogance:’ Digital Gateway developer QTS files appeal to save Prince William data center project
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Fauquier Now
(05/01/26)
QTS, one of two data center developer-defendants in the initial PW Digital Gateway legal challenges, filed an eleventh-hour appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court around 9 p.m. Thursday.
Following the decision by Compass Datacenters late Tuesday to bow out from further appeals, its counterparts at QTS are pressing forward with a petition to the commonwealth’s highest court.
Dominion: Future power demand for Va. data centers enough to power 12.75 million homes
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Richmond Times-Dispatch
(05/01/26)
Data centers kept lining up to plug into Virginia’s grid in the first three months of the year, telling Dominion Energy they wanted enough electricity to power 625,000 homes. That brings the total of future data center demand for electricity to 51,000 megawatts, Dominion said in materials for a presentation to Wall Street analysts. That’s enough for 12.75 million homes, or roughly four times the total of Virginia households.
Q&A: Are data centers putting too much pressure on states like Virginia?
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UVA Today
(05/01/26)
A clutch of states is trying to limit or ban data centers, giant operations known for their massive energy and water consumption. The National Conference of State Legislators puts the number at 14. Closer to home, Northern Virginia is widely considered the data center capital of the world, with the largest concentration of facilities anywhere. UVA Today turned to two legal experts, University of Virginia School of Law professors Richard Schragger and Cale Jaffe, to learn more about states’ pushback and the situation in Virginia.
‘The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer’: Opposition to Data Centers
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The New York Times
(05/01/26)
Americans have soured on data centers, polls show, and the sentiment is profoundly bipartisan. How that will change our politics?
Making the Most of the Grid We Already Have
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Governing.com
(05/01/26)
The U.S. is entering a new era of energy demand. An aging grid is already under strain from more frequent extreme weather and rising energy needs from artificial intelligence data centers that use as much power as entire cities.
Yet it’s a moment of incredible opportunity to grow the nation’s economy while driving investment in clean, affordable and resilient solutions.
Voters Turn on Lawmakers Who Back Data Centers as Midterms Loom
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Liberty Nation News
(05/01/26)
Communities across the United States are pushing back against data centers, citing the strain on natural resources and other local disruptions, as tech companies race to build digital infrastructure to support artificial intelligence projects. Data center development has become a household concern, and with the midterms on the horizon, voters are already taking action against politicians who back the computing facilities.
Large transmission line to cut through Virginia forests and farmland
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Bay Journal
(05/01/26)
Kate St. John hoped to catch a largemouth bass as she sat by the James River only paces away from the Joshua Falls electrical substation just east of Lynchburg, VA. A proposed transmission line from that substation could cut through her parents’ property. They’re debating moving out of the home they’ve had for generations. Hundreds of landowners are facing similar tough decisions.
DEQ Launches Air Quality Monitoring in Ashburn’s Data Center Alley
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Loudoun Now
(04/30/26)
The Department of Environmental Quality has launched an air quality monitoring program that provides real-time results across Loudoun’s data center alley – the world’s largest concentration of data centers. Concerns surrounding air quality impacts of data centers in the region have largely been led by the Piedmont Environmental Council, which commissioned an air quality study earlier this year on impacts of a Vantage data center in Sterling that is powered by natural gas turbines.
New state law mandates review of Dominion’s load forecasting, as data centers raise concerns
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Virginia Mercury
(04/30/26)
Dominion Energy’s annual rate case in September prompted concerns from data centers about how fast the utility connects their industry to the grid. The State Corporation Commission has now ordered a case specifically so the company can explain their rationale for timing when data centers hook up to transmission lines.
Western Prince William residents divided over offers from land developers
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Prince William Times
(04/30/26)
Lisa Park, who lives on Reid Lane in Nokesville, has recently been besieged by calls and texts asking her if she wants to sell her property. She says her neighbors are getting the same calls, and letters too. Behind these efforts is Corey Stewart, who held Prince William County’s top elected post for 13 years, from 2006 to 2019. He is joined by a sitting school board member and others with ties to local politics or the county’s most famous data center project: the Prince William Digital Gateway.
Brookfield unit drops out of giant data center project in Virginia
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CoStar
(04/29/26)
A division of Brookfield Corp. that develops data centers has dropped out of a large project in northern Virginia after encountering community opposition and state government resistance to providing tax incentives.
Here’s what House lawmakers want to require of data centers to keep their sales tax break
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Virginia Mercury
(04/29/26)
As lawmakers work behind closed doors to finalize the state’s $212 billion budget before the next fiscal year begins in July, negotiations hinge on whether the data center industry’s sales and use tax exemption should end, or continue with new requirements. The Senate version of the budget — arguably the most controversial part of either plan — completely eliminates the 5.6% tax exemption in an attempt to recoup the average annual loss of $1.6 billion in state revenue.
OPINION: We need AI, but the political backlash cannot be ignored
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The Hill
(04/28/26)
Artificial Intelligence holds the promise to improve life on the planet almost beyond description, such as developing new cancer therapies, but breakneck development of the data centers that run AI (along with more mundane applications from gambling to porn to cat videos) has spurred a grass-roots political backlash that is growing and could be a major factor in this year’s elections.
‘Living in Hell’: Data Center Neighbors Grapple With Noise, Air Pollution
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US News & World Report
(04/28/26)
Donna Gallant spent a lot of money on the windows in her house in Bristow, Virginia. But the sound from Google’s “Mango Farm” data center complex still penetrates her home. “As somebody who has anxiety, it triggers an anxiety attack in me every time they’re doing load testing, to the point where I can’t sleep because it literally rocks your core,” Gallant says. Americans who find themselves neighboring data centers have long criticized the accompanying increased energy costs that hurt their wallets. But the expanding presence of these sites may be hurting something else, too – their health.
Will Virginia senator, 82, curb data center boom?
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Rappahannock News
(04/28/26)
Virginia’s love affair with data centers is experiencing turbulence. The chief disrupter isn’t a wave of angry neighbors or land conservationists, but L. Louise Lucas, a determined 82-year-old Democratic state senator from Portsmouth, Va., who has pledged to undo a $1.9 billion tax break that helped entice the tech giants to plant some 600 centers in the state.
High-voltage line opposed
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Farmville Herald
(04/28/26)
Buckingham County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution Thursday, April 23, opposing the proposed Valley Link high-voltage transmission line that is proposed to cross the county.
Protesters gather at Gov. Spanberger event over Botetourt County data center
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ABC 13 News
(04/27/26)
While Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger was in Roanoke on Monday, signing bills, her visit also drew protests.
Protesters traveled from Botetourt County, where a new Google data center was recently approved. They say they are concerned about the impact of Virginia’s data center sales tax exemption.
Town council approves data center definition
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The Rapidan Register
(04/27/26)
After months of discussion, the Town of Orange has a new data center definition in its zoning ordinance. Orange Director of Community Development Debbie Sturm said the definition was created to be broad and replaces the former definition which was “inconsistent with current data center function and purpose.”
Data centers are now competing with food processors for grid capacity, and three meat plants have already lost the fight
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VegOut
(04/26/26)
According to documents filed with the Michigan Public Service Commission and reporting by local outlets, the expansion of a mid-sized poultry processing facility in Central Michigan was put on hold after the local utility informed the company that available grid capacity at the relevant substation had been committed to a hyperscale data center campus under development nearby.
Resistance to data centers grows nationwide
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Washington Examiner
(04/26/26)
A growing movement across the country aims to restrict data center developments because of fears about their use of energy, water consumption, and noise pollution.
‘Bespoke’ data center buildings proposed near Tysons residences
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FFX Now
(04/26/26)
A California-based operator making its first foray into the D.C. region applied earlier this year for a special exception that would allow it to replace the existing, “groaning” office buildings at 7990 and 7980 Quantum Drive with a “completely modernized” data center. The buildings would be also located just 107 to 131 feet away from the Reserve at Tysons Corner apartments to the south and the Heritage Point Townhouses to the west — under the county’s 200-foot minimum setback for data centers from residential areas.
The Small Midwest Community Leading America’s Crusade Against Data Centers
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The Wall Street Journal
(04/25/26)
After people in this St. Louis suburb voted out four local council members who supported plans for a new data center, dozens of residents packed City Hall to make clear they weren’t done.
Residents report ceaseless noise coming from Washington data center: ‘Constant buzzing in your head’
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MSN
(04/25/26)
Residents of Sterling, Virginia, are fed up with the nearby data center, and the incessant noise is just the beginning of their problems. The Vantage data center is the only one in Virginia powered by gas turbines, which is the source of the non-stop buzzing sound that has been tormenting residents in the surrounding area.
Va. budget leaders look for $1.6 billion from data centers
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Richmond Times-Dispatch
(04/24/26)
General Assembly budget leaders finally have something to agree on: they want an additional $1.6 billion from Virginia data centers over the next two years, one way or another. But that informal agreement between Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, and House Appropriations Chairman Luke Torian, D-Prince William, doesn’t mean a deal anytime soon on a new two-year state budget.
Local governments race to attract data centers, often in spite of concerns from their constituents
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Virginia Mercury
(04/24/26)
Data centers — proposed beside town centers, on generational farmlands, in view of cemeteries and next to Civil War battlegrounds across Virginia — are testing local governments’ ability to regulate industrial land use.
