Canary Media
Summary
In January, Virginia lawmakers unveiled a raft of legislation aimed at putting some guardrails on a data center industry whose insatiable hunger for electricity threatens to overwhelm the grid.
As the home of the world’s densest data center hub, Virginia is on the vanguard of dealing with these challenges. But the state is far from alone in a country where data center investments may exceed $1 trillion by mid-2029, driven in large part by “hyperscalers” with aggressive AI goals, like Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft.
“If we fail to act, the unchecked growth of the data center industry will leave Virginia’s families, will leave their businesses, footing the bill for infrastructure costs, enduring environmental degradation, and facing escalating energy rates,” state Sen. Russet Perry, a Democrat representing Loudoun County, the heart of Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” told reporters at the state capitol in Richmond last month. “The status quo is not sustainable.”
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