Virginia Data Centers Taken Over, Residents Not Happy

When you drive into Loudon County, Virginia, one of the first things you notice is the hum—that’s the sound of 199 data centers humming in the background.

Few people have heard of this unremarkable part of Northern Virginia, which also happens to be the richest county in America. But Loudon was on everyone’s radar earlier this week when a massive global Amazon outage took down everything from key banking services to Snapchat fun strips for millions.

That’s because the county is home to the world’s largest stretch of data storage and processing facilities — even surpassing China.

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

But while they’ve 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 feet in Loudoun, giving the county the nickname Data Center Alley.

Data centers occupy 3% of the county’s total area and 40% of its budget.

And now more facilities are on the way.

Emily Kasabian was walking her newborn son down her scenic Virginia neighborhood road 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 have taken over other parts of the county. The lack of centers nearby is why many of her neighbors choose to live there, she said.

“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 knew what was going on across the street.

The reason she, and many others, oppose these large facilities is not just because of their ungainly appearance — a typical data center can be 100,000 square feet, turning entire streets into large industrial blocks — but also some of their side effects.

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

Today, he’s dealing with the center’s impacts in real time—what worries him most is noise pollution.

“There are no birds here anymore,” he said, noting that the buzzing or buzzing the center makes scares a lot of wildlife out of his area.

In addition to noise concerns, people who live in the area have expressed frustration with rising electricity bills.

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

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

The data centers are essential to helping grow the burgeoning AI industry, an area Trump has said he wants the United States to lead.

His administration said it would “accelerate federal permitting of data center infrastructure” to create a “golden age for American manufacturing and technology.”

Centers can also have a major impact on local and state economies. Annually, the data center industry creates about 74,000 jobs, totaling $5.5 billion (£4 billion) in labor income for Virginia’s economy, according to a state audit.

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

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

Local officials soon got involved and began giving corporations like Amazon and Google the go-ahead to start building their facilities.

And the area had one more thing going for them in their quest to create a headquarters for a new booming industry: the right talent.

“Northern Virginia was really at the center of the growth of the Internet, (it was) the headquarters of AOL, and so naturally they have the talent, the people are already there, it was just easier to make (the data centers) there,” said Thomas Heaslip, a cybersecurity expert.

As the industry began to flourish rapidly earlier this century, regulations for the centers were limited.

Virginia’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, vetoed state legislation that would have regulated the centers earlier this year.

Dan Diori, vice president of public policy at the Data Center Coalition, an industry group, said the industry needs to do a better job communicating the benefits of these centers and listening to people’s concerns. But he doesn’t think more regulation is needed.

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

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

“These data centers are growing faster than we realized the implications of that, and then we’re trying to fix it,” she said.

Market reports show that in August 2025there were currently more than 1,100 data centers in the US, with almost 400 new centers being built.

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

“It’s a beautiful great place to live, but if this type of development continues to happen and they allow it to encroach, they’re undermining what makes it a great place to live, and we’re going to start seeing the consequences of that soon unless we start to correct course in a very fundamental 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 idyllic suburban neighborhood, forcing her family to make the difficult decision to relocate.

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

Video by Meiying Wu