The proliferation of data centers is turning Virginia into ‘the Commonwealth of Amazon’

2023-02-23T16:30:00-05:00

Amazon in January signed a $35 billion contract to build new data centers across Virginia, a deal so sizable a detractor disappointed at the incentives being thrown at the tech giant said, “We might as well start calling it the Commonwealth of Amazon.”

The state’s “Data Center Alley,” Loudoun County, is still cutting $1- to $3 million-per-acre deals with tech companies that rely on hyperscale data centers designed to provide massive, scalable data storage and computing resources for cloud computing and big data processing. The currently inadequate power grid is not expected to be up to snuff until 2026. The problem is spreading beyond Old Dominion to places like Portland, Oregon, suburban Chicago, and other communities where tax incentives rule over local opposition and environmental concerns.

Back in December, the Dodge Construction network’s chief economist Richard Branch said to expect the boom to last at least another two years. The real scope of the epoch could be much longer. As reported by the Commercial Observer, experts from Cushman & Wakefield said they project the market to grow from $173 to $728 billion by 2027 for hyperscale construction alone.

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The proliferation of data centers is turning Virginia into ‘the Commonwealth of Amazon’