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
AI-Powered Mass Emails Are Warping Local Energy, Climate Politics
-
Bloomberg
(07/24/26)
Two weeks before the board of a Southern California environmental agency was to vote on a pair of landmark climate initiatives last May, staff raised an alarm. “An aggressive campaign” from an “AI powered platform,” they told executives, was flooding their servers with thousands of emails from the public opposing the proposals to phase out gas water heaters and furnaces in nearly half the state’s homes.
BREAKING: Fauquier supervisors approve on-site power for Remington-area data centers
-
Fauquier Times
(07/10/26)
Remington Technology Park — a six-building, 1.8 million-square-foot data center complex approved in 2018 — is one step closer to becoming a reality after the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 on Tuesday night in favor of a new plan to power the project.
AI boom puts Big Tech’s transparency to the test
-
Axios
(07/10/26)
After years of touting ambitious climate goals, big tech companies are now facing new scrutiny over what they disclose about AI’s environmental footprint. The AI boom is turning a handful of tech companies into defining players in the debate over electricity and water use. Their willingness to disclose these impacts is becoming almost as important as the impacts themselves.
How Northern Virginia Became ‘Data Center Alley’
-
Notus
(07/09/26)
Almost 200 more data centers are expected to go up in the coming years. Loudoun specifically has the highest concentration of data centers in the world. But that title may be in jeopardy. Public sentiment towards data centers has soured, with opponents pointing to rising household utility bills and environmental concerns. Politicians are weighing how to balance constituent demands with a behemoth industry those same constituents rely on for cloud computing and county revenue.
China, Russia and Others Seek to Inflame Debate Over A.I. Data Centers
-
The New York Times
(07/09/26)
China, Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran have sought to use state media outlets to turn the controversy over data centers in the United States into “a domestic fracture point,” according to a new analysis by Alethea, a threat intelligence company, which identified scores of articles and posts on social media this year.
AI’s no-win choice: Using huge amounts of water or energy
-
E&E News
(07/09/26)
Amazon’s Schlitz said the promise of zero water can be misleading. “There’s a lot of confusion out there” about closed-loop systems, he said. While closed loops reduce water, operators still need to reject heat from the loops and from the buildings. And water is often the most effective method, especially when it’s above 85 degrees, he said.
Microsoft’s AI boom collides with its climate goals
-
Axios
(07/09/26)
Like its tech peers, Microsoft’s environmental impact indicators largely continued moving upward. Its total greenhouse gas emissions are up 25%, fueled by both its growth in digital infrastructure, especially AI, and changes to the company’s electricity procurement strategy.
The company said a key measure of data-center water-use efficiency improved 25% from its 2022 baseline, putting it on track toward a goal of improving that metric 40% by 2030.
Grave concerns: Stafford supervisors defer data center project on property with historic cemetery
-
Fredericksburg Free Press
(07/09/26)
This editorial discusses a decision before the county Board of Supervisors about approving a data center project that would be built on property containing a historic cemetery that includes the graves of enslaved residents.
Chesapeake Planning Commission recommends zoning changes for data centers
-
The Virginian-Pilot
(07/09/26)
The ordinance would require data center project approval on a case-by-case basis with a conditional use permit. Currently, no such approval is required, and the changes would limit data center development to only industrial zoning districts and the Fentress Airfield Overlay District.
Fauquier supervisors approve on-site power for Remington-area data centers
-
Fauquier Times
(07/09/26)
Remington Technology Park — a six-building, 1.8 million-square-foot data center complex approved in 2018 — is one step closer to becoming a reality after the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 on Tuesday night in favor of a new plan to power the project.
Chesapeake Planning Commission recommends approving data center policy
-
WHRO
(07/09/26)
At a public hearing Wednesday night, the Chesapeake Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval for changes to the city’s zoning ordinance and proposed policy for data centers. The ordinance suggests amendments to the city code that would designate data centers as a conditional use in industrial zoning districts and the Fentress Airfield Overlay District, if they meet certain requirements.
By water use, Google’s Botetourt site would be its 8th largest data center complex in the world
-
Cardinal News
(07/09/26)
The Google data center complex that’s coming to Botetourt County would start off as its sixth largest in the country and eighth largest in the world, according to data in the company’s recent 2026 environmental report. That’s based on Google’s figures for water use for each of its data center locations. The Botetourt site is contracted for 2 million gallons of water per day, or 730 million gallons per year.
Stafford data center paused over concerns of enslaved peoples’ graves
-
Fox5DC
(07/09/26)
The delay comes amid growing concerns over an estimated 200-year-old cemetery containing an unknown number of gravesites, reportedly belonging to enslaved people, on the property. The board voted 4–3 to defer the comprehensive plan, zoning reclassification and building height proposals on Tuesday night, urging the developer to thoroughly investigate the site.
Roanoke City sets rules for data centers before developers come knocking
-
WSLS
(07/09/26)
Roanoke City Council unanimously passed a new ordinance Monday setting rules for where and how data centers can be built — getting ahead of potential development before any project is ever proposed. The move comes as data centers continue to expand across Southwest Virginia, including a major Google facility in neighboring Botetourt County.
Data centers at center of Virginia battles over taxes, environment, and jobs
-
People’s World
(07/09/26)
A month-long budget battle has shown fractures in the Commonwealth’s Democratic Trifecta, revealed divisions both among and within trade unions, and given fuel to discourse concerning the impacts of data centers on community, environment, AI, and data privacy. An important footnote to this budget battle are the funds infused into state campaigns and political committees by pro-data-center lobbying groups.
How Virginia’s Plans for Biggest Data Center in the World Fell Apart
-
Newsweek
(07/09/26)
The Digital Gateway project appeared well-positioned to move forward after receiving local approval in December 2023. Supporters argued it would generate tens of billions of dollars in investment, create thousands of jobs, and provide substantial tax revenue for local government. But unlike many other Virginia data-center proposals, the project encountered unusually strong opposition.
The data center boom comes to the Fredericksburg region
-
Free Lance-Star
(07/09/26)
With millions of square feet approved and more expected, Stafford and Spotsylvania counties stand front and center in high-tech development that continues to reshape Virginia, the so-called data center capital of the world.
After Delays, Supervisors Approve 2 Substations
-
Loudoun Now
(07/08/26)
During Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, county leaders were briefed on a consultant study that provided them a deep-dive into electrical substation technology, and then approved two more substations—one viewed as critical to the stability of the regional grid and another to distribute power to a Sterling data center.
What to know about Remington-area data centers’ plan for gas fuel cell energy
-
Fauquier Times
(07/08/26)
The Fauquier Board of Supervisors will review a rezoning application Thursday for Remington Technology Park, a planned six-building data center campus outside Remington that was approved in 2018 but not yet built.
Utah’s Stratos project draws warnings from Virginia’s ‘Data Center Alley’
-
KSL
(07/08/26)
Roughly 2,000 miles away from Utah, Loudoun County, Virginia, is home to 253 data centers. “That data center is the cloud,” Sterling resident Jessica Medeiros said, pointing to a data center across the street from her neighborhood that makes noise at all hours of the day. “There’s not been a single day in 16 years where a data center was not under construction in Loudoun County,” said Mike Turner, vice chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.
Is solar energy enough to power Virginia’s robust, growing data center industry?
-
WJLA-ABC7News
(07/08/26)
The AES-owned Spotsylvania Solar Energy Center contains more than 6,300 acres of solar panels. According to the company’s website, the Spotsylvania solar energy farm is planned to produce 485 MW. Despite its massive size, the Spotsylvania solar farm wouldn’t produce enough electricity to power the 500 MW Digital Realty [IAD37] data center complex in Ashburn.
Virginia data center debate moves west to Warren County
-
WJLA-ABC7News
(07/08/26)
Just before midnight Wednesday, after an hours long public hearing, the Warren County Planning Board voted to recommend denial of a proposal that would pave the way for a data center in the county. Although the planning commission is recommending denial, ultimately the Warren County Board of Supervisors will have the final say on whether to change the county code and allow the data center to be built.
I Want More – As Data Centers Come to More Northeast States, Natural Gas Market Prepares for Growth
-
RBN Energy
(07/07/26)
A number of states have been early movers in the data center world, but several in the Northeast — while not yet major data center hubs — are laying the groundwork for a much bigger role. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the plans of several Northeastern states and how they could impact the region’s natural gas market.
Two-year moratorium on data center development passes in Prince George’s Co.
-
WTOP News
(07/07/26)
The Prince George’s County Council passed a two-year moratorium on hyperscale data center development to give members more time to consider how the county will go about it in the future. The decision followed nearly an hour of public input and about half an hour of discussion among council members. The moratorium is an extension of previous and similar actions by the council.
Life inside ‘Data Center Alley’: What Utah can learn from Loudoun County, Virginia
-
KSL
(07/07/26)
“Try to get some laws done now,” Shaw said. “Try to get some regulations specifically around data centers now.” As she listened to the steady hum of the gas turbines across the street, Shaw added, “Folks in Utah and other places have a little bit of an advantage by our pain. They can at least learn from it. Know what to ask.”
