See below for a Facebook post and video, courtesy of Loudoun County Chair Phyllis Randall, regarding her July 6 townhall meeting on data centers – in a county that “has the highest concentration of data centers in the world with approximately 250 data centers built and more than 100 in the development pipeline.” For some, well, data on data centers in Loudoun County, according to this presentation, by Loudoun County Vice Chair Mike Turner:
- “Loudoun County, VA, and particularly ‘Data Center Alley’ in eastern Loudoun, has the highest concentration of data centers in the world with approximately 250 data centers built and more than 100 in the development pipeline. There has not been a single day in 16 years when a data center was not under construction in Loudoun County.”
- “From 2021-2025, largely before the dawn of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Loudoun County’s energy use increased 233%, from 2.0 Gw to 5.33 Gw of power consumption. Using a simple linear extrapolation over the next five years, without accounting for a likely tenfold increase in power required by AI, Loudoun will need 14.2 Gw of power. An independently commissioned Kimley-Horn report has confirmed a similar prediction,
estimating 11.59 Gw of power will be needed by 2028. Loudoun County is currently receiving about 9.3 Gw of power, though only a portion of that reaches “data center alley.” PJM and Dominion Energy plan to bring an additional 8.6 Gw into Loudoun County by 2028 to meet Loudoun’s growing power demands, but it is unclear how much of this additional power will reach “Data Center Alley.” None of this development addresses the vast increase in power demand anticipated for AI.” - “In the author’s opinion, the electric utilities serving Northern Virginia (PJM; Dominion Energy) will be unable to build sufficient grid
infrastructure to meet the growing demand for power by the region’s data centers. This conclusion, originally stated in the preface below in July 2024, was similarly arrived at in the December 2024 JLARC data center report to the Virginia Governor and General Assembly.” - “The exponential increase in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not only increasing the demand for more power, it is increasing the demand for more water to cool the power-intensive AI data racks. This in turn is introducing the problem of how to treat data center wastewater.”
- “In FY2027, Loudoun County estimates about $1.3 billion in data center real and personal property tax revenue. The county’s total Local Tax Revenue is projected to be $2.9 billion.”
- “As a result of data center tax revenue, Loudoun County has the lowest real property tax rate in NOVA; about 25% lower than our neighbors.”
- “A data center costs the county $0.04 per $1 of tax revenue received, whereas normal businesses cost about $0.25 per $1 of revenue. Data centers put very few cars on the road. Data centers put very few kids in schools.”
Also, see here for a map of data centers in “data center alley”/northern Virginia.
