Northern Virginia 'ground zero' for living with data centers

When Julia Mason moved into her new home in Loudoun Meadows six years ago, the community was less than 10 years old, and the view across Quail Ridge Lake was a farm, with woods and a red-and-white barn.

Mason didn't know that the same day she arrived, a developer broke ground for a 1- million-square-foot data center for Amazon Web Services that now rises 70 feet directly across from her home on a cul-de-sac in this community near Aldie in southeastern Loudoun County.

The view from the community landing on Quail Ridge Lake now features the Amazon complex on one side and a 1.5-million-square-foot data center built by Microsoft on the other, with an electric power substation next to it. Neither data center is operating yet, but their presence is inescapable. "It was a farm when we were looking at it," she said. "Now we're staring at a substation."

That's the new reality in the "ground zero" of data center development in the world. Loudoun is home to about 200 data centers, with 3,500 tenants occupying nearly 50 million square feet of space. As of early 2024, neighboring Prince William County had 44 existing data center buildings, with 12 million square feet of space. It had 15 more under construction with 4 million square feet.

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