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
Data centers dominate Spotsylvania supervisors meeting
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Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
(08/14/26)
After a lengthy discussion Tuesday evening, the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors endorsed a letter supporting a state moratorium on data center development until more information can be gathered on potential impacts on electricity demand, water use and pollution.
American anxiety about AI is becoming a political force in the midterms
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The Washington Post
(08/14/26)
Across the United States, political candidates are grappling with an issue that has never before featured widely in American political life: artificial intelligence. You can see it in candidates of both major parties trying to one-up each other with crackdowns on data centers.
Lowdown from Loudoun: Virginia official shares data center tips with Maryland audience
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Virginia Mercury
(08/14/26)
Turner, a government official in the county with one of the world’s highest concentrations of data centers with over 250, said constituents calling to ask about them used to be pacified when they learned that their real property taxes were 25% lower than any other region in the Washington D.C. metro area. But no longer.
Data centers have already hiked electricity prices on the public by $23 billion. Good luck clawing that back
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Fortune
(08/14/26)
I have studied the programs states have launched to address the needs of these large electricity customers. Prices are set by state utility commissions, who determine which customers’ rates will increase by how much to pay for new investments in electricity infrastructure. It’s not simple.
Column: AI is reshaping Hampton Roads before our eyes
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The Virginian-Pilot
(08/13/26)
Rather than approving the next wave of data center development, council members unanimously voted to pause new applications for eight months. They wanted time to study where these facilities belong, how they should be regulated and what they could mean for nearby communities.
Does Virginia need a moratorium on data center construction and development?
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WHRO
(08/13/26)
“Over the past couple of months, we have seen the approval rating of data centers sour, not just in Prince William County, and not just in Fredericksburg, but all over the Commonwealth and the United States,” Cole says. “And so, I think the more and more we don’t do something about it, the more and more the people are going to have an appetite for us to do something.”
Public comment notice for Microsoft data center on former missile site raises transparency concerns
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InsideNoVa
(08/13/26)
An environmental impact review public notice is drawing resident backlash in Prince William County due to scant details regarding the true scope of Microsoft’s planned data center campus in Bristow. “The main concern is that the DEQ notice does not specify six data centers are going to be built on that property, the way our Prince William County mapper shows,” Martorana told InsideNoVa. “They only speak of two one-story buildings and a substation, which seems obscene when that parcel sold for over $400 million.”
Residents question supervisors on proposed data center ban
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The Winchester Star
(08/13/26)
If approved as presented, this would make Frederick County the first county in Virginia to remove data centers as a permitted use. Virginia not only has the most data centers in the United States, it has more listed data centers (674) than any other country in the world, according to Statista. But most of the those who were packed into the board meeting room aren’t convinced about the effectiveness of such an amendment.
Spotsylvania supervisors approve statewide data center moratorium resolution
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Fredericksburg Free Press
(08/13/26)
There are times when the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors requests that the General Assembly stay out of local government affairs. But when it comes to data center development, the board adopted a resolution Tuesday night urging Gov. Abigail Spanberger to enact a statewide moratorium on the industry “in order to allow the Commonwealth to study and determine whether data center development should continue to be permitted and, if so, under what conditions.”
Data Center Debate Draws Crowd as Residents Demand Transparency, Local Control
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Royal Examiner
(08/13/26)
Throughout the evening, speakers repeatedly returned to one central theme: communities deserve more information before decisions are made that could permanently reshape their landscapes. “The costs, which are land preservation and energy costs that are soaring, our water systems that are being drained and depleted, the personal costs that some landowners bear in having to give up land because of new transmission lines that are being built specifically to serve one industry,” Shin said.
Proposed data center in Fredericksburg on shaky ground
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Free Lance-Star
(08/13/26)
Four council members — Matt Rowe, Jannan Holmes, Will Mackintosh and Susanna Finn — have publicly stated that they will not support the Penzance Development project. Four no votes are enough to scuttle any proposal brought before the seven-member council. A public hearing on the proposed project at 1500 Gateway Boulevard is scheduled for the Aug. 25 council meeting.
Loudoun County weighs data center pause as Spanberger opposes statewide ban
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Fox5DC
(08/13/26)
At a stop in northern Virginia on Thursday, Spanberger said the decision to build or block data centers should be left up to the individual communities. Loudoun County is one of those communities debating a potential pause on data center expansion.
Virginia Beach sells land for colocation data center expansion
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The Virginian-Pilot
(08/12/26)
A data center company that connects subsea cables with on-land internet service providers will buy 9 acres in Corporate Landing Business Park to expand its existing services.
Bloomberg NEF: Texas grid pause puts 20 percent of US data center pipeline at risk
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Data Center Dynamics
(08/12/26)
ERCOT currently has more than 470GW of interconnection requests in its queue, of which approximately 90 percent are tied to data center load. BNEF said that it expects that about 8.25 GW of additional data center capacity will come online in ERCOT through 2030.
An AI activist was about to enter the lion’s den. Then this happened
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Australian Financial Review
(08/12/26)
As for the message she would have delivered to the premier and the dozen or so men around the embassy roundtable, if given the chance? “Look before you leap.” “This is what I say consistently,” she says. “What is happening in Virginia is a cautionary tale.
Virginia experts concerned about long-term water impact of Google data center
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WDBJ
(08/12/26)
The facility plans to draw up to 2 million gallons of water per day from the reservoir. That figure could rise to 8 million gallons per day pending approval from the Western Virginia Water Authority, which has said the cove can handle the additional draw of 2 million gallons despite an ongoing drought. “If Google wants to start building that data center, they must participate in maintenance of that facility and help create a management plan to improve that infrastructure. I think that has to be part of the deal,” Shirzaei said.
County seeks stronger data center rules
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Henry County Enterprise
(08/12/26)
Following strong opposition from residents at its July 28 meeting, the Henry County Board of Supervisors is working to strengthen its proposed data center ordinance before taking action. More than 30 residents spoke against data centers during the meeting, prompting the board to pull the data center provisions from the proposed ordinance and give supervisors and county officials more time to review them.
Gov. Spanberger dismisses calls to pause data center growth in Virginia
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Petersburg Progress-Index
(08/12/26)
Gov. Abigail Spanberger dismissed the idea of a data center moratorium in Virginia as requested by one of the Tri-City area’s state senators, saying the steps her administration has taken to make data centers pay their own way supersedes any effort to block them from being developed.
Most Power Sought for US Data Centers Will Never Materialize
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Bloomberg
(08/12/26)
While no one expects every proposed project to be built, the data reveals how inflated projections of future power demand complicate planning and budgeting by utilities and grid operators. That can translate into higher utility bills, since capital costs for upgrading infrastructure are typically covered through rate hikes.
How utility and tech firms ‘educate’ regulators with big donations, secret retreats
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The Washington Post
(08/12/26)
The industry-funded retreat was not meant to be seen. Handouts said reporters and constituents were not welcome. But their name tags identified the attendees moving through the lobby. Among them were utility commissioners — state officials whose decisions impact electricity bills and determine whether utilities can build power plants and transmission lines.
Virginia Data Center Boom Pushes Dominion Deeper Into Costly Power Market
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US News & World Report
(08/11/26)
Dominion’s fuel costs in Virginia have risen nearly 90% in five years as data-center-driven demand leaves the utility increasingly exposed to volatile wholesale electricity prices. The surge in fuel costs in Virginia, the world’s largest data center market, is casting further doubt on claims that AI-driven electricity demand is not saddling residential customers with higher power bills.
Column: Virginia undecided on who gets water from refilled aquifer
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The Virginian-Pilot
(08/11/26)
The aquifer has an interest of its own, since the injections were sold partly as a defense against subsidence and saltwater intrusion. Data centers will argue a replenished aquifer has room for them. Two senators, one from each party, have asked for a special session. A third wants data center approvals halted statewide. Gov. Abigail Spanberger has answered neither.
One Virginia county’s data center power battle is a warning to everyone
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NBC Washington
(08/11/26)
Loudoun County became the center of the data center economy — and collected hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue along the way. But every server needs electricity, and now the infrastructure required to power Northern Virginia’s data centers is colliding with backyards, neighborhoods, schools and local control.
Formal permit application filed for Tuckahoe Tech Park data center campus in Goochland
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Richmond BizSense
(08/11/26)
Denver-based Tract submitted last Wednesday its formal application for a conditional use permit for Tuckahoe Technology Park, which would rise on roughly 870 acres just west of West Creek Business Park. Tuckahoe Tech Park would be located within TOD West, a western portion of the county’s recently created, controversial technology overlay district.
Data Centers Are Moving In Next to American Homes—Here’s How Neighborhoods Are Changing
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Realtor.com
(08/11/26)
The number of large data centers over 50 megawatts has increased sevenfold from 2018, and now U.S. communities host over 350 of them. By the end of this year, almost 2% of home sales will be near a big data center. And while data centers are pushing into increasingly rural areas and lower-income regions, their impact on home values remains unclear.
