Posted on 10/26/2025 6:08:29 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
When you cross into Loudon County, Virginia, one of the first things you notice is the hum - that's the sound of 199 data centres whirring in the background.
Few people have heard of this inconspicuous part of northern Virginia, which also happens to be the wealthiest county in the US. But Loudon was on everyone's radar earlier this week, when a massive global Amazon outage downed everything from crucial banking services to fun Snapchat streaks for millions.
That's because the county is home to the world's largest swath of data storage and processing facilities - even outpacing China.
Data centres - dedicated spaces for computer systems that help power the internet and artificial intelligence - are essential to our global connectivity.
But while they have 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 some 200 facilities taking up about 45 million square metres in Loudoun, giving the county the nickname Data Center Alley.
Data centres take up 3% of the total land area of the county and 40% of its budget.
And now more facilities are on their way.
Emily Kasabian was walking her newborn son along her picturesque neighbourhood road in Virginia earlier this year, when she saw something that stopped her in her tracks.
A sign for a proposed data centre moving in across the street.
Two years ago, when Ms Kasabian purchased her home she said she was relieved to be away from the data centres that have taken over other parts of the county. The lack of centres nearby was the reason many of her neighbours chose to live there, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
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Can’t even spell Loudoun. Clearly experts on the area.
I’ve sometimes thought it might be nice to retire to the National Radio Quiet Zone....but then, I couldn’t be here...
That’s happening in northern Indiana as well. Many residents are mad, the local government will not validate their concerns and rubber stamp the approval of their construction over the wishes of those residents. Simply put, the only thing county and state governments here in Indiana see is dollar signs and they could care less about their constiuents.
Indiana is getting $15 billion in Big Tech investment. Residents don’t want to foot the energy bill.
A bill moving through the Indiana legislature would require tech firms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to cover 80% of project costs, which, if enacted, would make it the first state to do so. At the same time, the bill would allow Indiana utilities to try and pass the costs of building smaller nuclear reactors to customers. Tech companies hope these early-stage energy solutions could someday supply cleaner, around-the-clock power to data centers.
Remember boys and girls, data centers need large capacity as they store things, AI requires high speed computation. So why aren’t they named high-speed computation centers?
In high school, I could see I30 headed west to California. I dreamed of the day I would go that way. Ended up spending 31 years in Texas and 31 years in California.
Tell ya what, this kind of thing makes me want to find a ghost/dead town somewhere to get away from all this nonsense. Set out some solar panels, sink my own well, invest in a wood burning stove. Go off grid as much as possible.
The standard now is, whenever a highway is built or rebuilt, you bury tons of dark fiber alongside it.
LOL. Information that is stored in storage is "data".
Information that is processed by high-speed computers is "data".
Data is the one thing in common between storage and computation.
And that, boys and girls, is why they're called "data centers".
For example there's a inconceivably ginormous facility out West called the "Utah Data Center" (UDC) where the government (specifically the NSA) is storing inconceivably ginormous amounts of data on American citizens. People think of it as a "storage facility" but in fact there's a cubic f*ck-ton of compute power there as well, to manage and sort all that data.
“Simply put, the only thing county and state governments here in Indiana see is dollar signs and they could care less about their constituents.”
That’s exactly what I’ve seen in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and our small town on the San Francisco Peninsula. The developers get their proposals approved no matter what.
bkmk
Also, I noted they had huge black coach buses going back and forth between the center and the airport. I would see them every time I drove out of our place and down the road. After James O'Keeffe's expose on the usage of a data center in Arizona to house illegal immigrants before getting them to the airport, I am convinced that is exactly what was happening at the data center in my neighborhood.
How awful to have your home ruined like that! It is SO frustrating, especially knowing you are powerless and they don’t care. I feel sorely for you.
The energy developers are pushing wind farms into the beautiful Palouse region of eastern Washington state. Last time we drove through the little town of Colfax (March 2024) we saw hundreds of “No Wind Farms) signs all over. But the all powerful STATE has decided that Washington should tackle the “clops,ate crisis” and has decreed the region be kruined. Washington puts out something like 0.01% of the CO2 that China does.
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