Data centres in Virginia have taken over, residents aren’t happy

When you cross into Loudoun County, Virginia, the first thing you notice is the hum — the sound of 199 data centers humming in the background.

Few people have ever heard of this sketchy part of Northern Virginia, which happens to be the richest county in America. But Loudon was on everyone’s radar earlier this week, when Amazon’s massive global outage interrupted everything from important banking services to Snapchat fun for millions.

This is because the province is home to the largest collection of data storage and processing facilities in the world – even surpassing China’s.

Data centers — dedicated spaces for computer systems that help power the Internet and artificial intelligence — are essential to our global connectivity.

But although it has proven to be a lucrative business – contributing billions to the local economy – some residents worry the cost comes at too high a price.

There are about 200 facilities occupying about 45 million square meters in Loudoun, giving the county the title of Data Center Alley.

Data centers account for 3% of the province’s total land area and 40% of its budget.

And now more facilities are on their way.

Emily Kasabian was walking with her newborn son along a picturesque neighborhood road in her Virginia neighborhood earlier this year, when she saw something that stopped her in her tracks.

A sign for a proposed data center moving across the street.

Two years ago, when Ms. Kasabian bought her home, she said she was relieved to be away from the data centers that dominated other parts of the county. She said the lack of nearby centers was the reason many of her neighbors chose to live there.

“I never thought a data center would be built across the street from my house,” she said. “I wouldn’t have bought this house if I had known what was going on across the street.”

The reason she, and many others, oppose such massive facilities is not just their powerful appearance — a typical data center can be 100,000 square feet, turning entire streets into massive industrial blocks — but some of their side effects as well.

A massive data center of bright blue concrete and glass sits just steps from Greg Perio’s front door in Loudoun County. Thirteen years ago, when he bought his house, that piece of land was full of green trees and singing birds.

Today, he deals with the center’s effects in real time — what bothers him most is the noise pollution.

“There are no birds here anymore,” he said, noting that the buzzing noise the center makes scares away much of the wildlife in his area.

In addition to concerns about noise, area residents expressed frustration with rising electricity bills.

In the past five years, wholesale electricity costs have risen as much as 267% in areas near data centers, according to a Bloomberg News investigation. Found.

But while most locals the BBC spoke to are against data centres, the industry has many powerful supporters, including President Donald Trump.

Data centers are essential to help grow the thriving artificial intelligence industry, an area that Trump has said he wants the United States to lead.

His administration said it would “accelerate the federal permitting process for data center infrastructure” to conjure “a golden age of manufacturing and technology in America.”

The centers can have significant impacts on local and state economies as well. The data center industry annually creates about 74,000 jobs, totaling $5.5 billion (£4 billion) in labor income to Virginia’s economy, according to a state audit.

Loudoun County was among the first to see the potential, about a decade ago, and began growing this new industry.

Developers realized that the area was the perfect place for data centers, as it was full of cheap flat land.

Local officials quickly got on board and began giving companies like Amazon and Google the green light to begin building their facilities.

And the region had something else going for them in their quest to create a headquarters for a thriving new industry: the right talent.

“Northern Virginia was actually the epicenter of the growth of the Internet; [it was] Where AOL was headquartered, they naturally had the talent, they had the people already in place, and it was easier to do it [the data centres] “There is,” said Thomas Heaslip, a cybersecurity expert.

Since the industry began to boom rapidly earlier this century, rules governing the centers have been limited.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed state legislation that would have regulated the centers earlier this year.

The industry needs to do a better job of communicating the positive aspects of these centers and listening to people’s concerns, said Dan Dury, vice president of state policy at the Data Center Alliance, an industry group. But he doesn’t think more regulation is necessary.

Data centers aren’t going anywhere, he said. They have been and will continue to be “the backbone of the 21st century economy.”

But some residents, like Barbara Day, say people shouldn’t have to choose between economics and quality of life.

“These data centers are evolving faster than we realized the implications, so we’re going back to fix them,” she said.

Market reports show this in August 2025There are currently more than 1,100 data centers across the United States, with nearly 400 new ones under construction.

Activists like Ms. Kasabian hope to reduce those numbers, by lobbying state and local legislatures to delay or pause projects.

“This is a wonderful, beautiful place to live, but if this type of development continues and they allow it to encroach, they are going to erode what makes this a great place to live, and we are going to start seeing the consequences of that soon unless we start correcting the course in a very big way,” she said.

The mother of two knows she may not win this battle, and data centers may soon appear across the street from her ideal suburban neighborhood, forcing her family to make the difficult decision to move.

“The question is, well, do we want to stay in the county, and how do we know where to go next, so the same thing won’t happen?”

Video by Meing Wu