If the US Has to Build Data Centers, Here’s Where They Should Go

Tech companies have invested truthful overmuch wealth successful gathering information centers successful caller months, it’s actively driving the US economy—and the AI contention is showing nary signs of slowing down. Meta main Mark Zuckerberg told President Donald Trump past week that the institution would walk $600 cardinal connected US infrastructure—including information centers—by 2028, portion OpenAI has committed already to spending $1.4 trillion.

An extended caller investigation looks astatine the biology footprint of information centers successful the US to get a grip connected what, exactly, the state mightiness beryllium facing arsenic this buildout continues implicit the adjacent fewer years—and wherever the US should beryllium gathering information centers to debar the astir harmful biology impacts.

The study, published successful the diary Nature Communications connected Monday, uses a assortment of data, including request for AI chips and accusation connected authorities energy and h2o scarcity, to task the imaginable biology impacts of aboriginal information centers done the extremity of the decade. The survey models a fig of antithetic imaginable scenarios connected however information centers could impact the US and the planet—and cautions that tech companies’ nett zero promises aren’t apt to clasp up against the vigor and h2o needs of the monolithic facilities they’re building.

Fengqi You, a prof successful vigor systems engineering astatine Cornell and 1 of the authors of the analysis, says that the study, which began 3 years ago, comes astatine “a cleanable clip to recognize however AI is making an interaction connected clime systems and h2o usage and consumption.”

The AI manufacture “is increasing overmuch faster than we expected,” helium adds—especially with the Trump administration’s laser absorption connected the industry. “This full happening is conscionable getting truthful overmuch momentum close now.”

Not each information centers are created environmentally equal: a batch of their h2o and c footprint depends connected wherever they’re located. Some US states whitethorn person grids that tally much connected renewable energy, oregon are making large strides successful putting much cleanable vigor connected the grid; this greatly lessens the c emissions from information centers that gully powerfulness from those grids. Similarly, states with little h2o scarcity are amended suited to supply the ample amounts of h2o needed for cooling information centers. (Cooling besides constitutes a large portion of information halfway vigor use.) The champion locations for a information halfway implicit the adjacent fewer years successful the US are states that onslaught a equilibrium betwixt these 2 inputs: Texas, Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota, the investigation finds, are “optimal candidates for AI server installations.”

Much of the information halfway buildout successful the US has historically focused connected places similar Virginia, the information halfway hub of the US, and Northern California. Being adjacent to Washington, DC, and Silicon Valley was important to information halfway companies, arsenic were the dense fibre connectivity successful those regions and their skilled workforces. Virginia has besides offered important taxation breaks for information centers for years—one method different states are turning to to lure development. According to Data Center Map, an manufacture instrumentality that tracks information halfway development, of the 4,000-plus information centers successful the US, much than 650 are successful Virginia—the astir successful the country—and California has much than 320, ranking third.

While Virginia doesn’t endure from h2o scarcity, advocates person said that monolithic vigor requirements from information centers could derail the state’s goals to root 100 percent cleanable vigor by 2045. Conversely, California’s long-running h2o issues whitethorn origin a occupation if information centers support expanding there. (In October, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a measure that would person required information halfway operators to disclose however overmuch h2o they use, claiming that the authorities is “well positioned to enactment the development” of information centers.)

Data halfway operators take locations based connected a assortment of factors, including vigor and h2o needs. But they’re not the lone inputs: Arizona, which has much than 160 information centers, is named successful the investigation arsenic 1 of the states facing “severe h2o scarcity issues.”

The manufacture has nary plans to determination retired of immoderate of their favored areas: There are inactive monolithic projects planned for Virginia, including a $9 cardinal concern from Google announced successful August. But proceed to physique successful already-stressed areas and “you’re going to transcend the capableness for earthy resources,” You says. He compares information halfway operators flocking to fashionable areas arsenic analogous to radical surviving successful the aforesaid country each going to the aforesaid market store astatine the aforesaid time. “The buying acquisition is not going to beryllium pleasant, adjacent if it whitethorn beryllium the champion store successful town.”

Texas, 1 of the apical states for aboriginal improvement named successful the study, has built retired a robust information halfway industry, and is present the second-most-popular authorities for information centers successful the country, according to Data Center Map. (Much of this roar has travel precise recently: Data halfway operation successful Texas quadrupled betwixt 2023 and 2024.) But different apical states named successful the analysis—Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota—still person comparatively fewer information centers. However, their numbers are rising, You says, arsenic the information halfway manufacture aggressively expands crossed the country. An LA-based institution is looking to physique the archetypal hyperscale information halfway successful South Dakota, portion Nebraska’s 39 information centers see precocious opened facilities owned by Meta and Google. Still, these states person a agelong mode to spell to drawback up to places similar Virginia. (South Dakota, according to Data Center Map, has conscionable 5 facilities, the second-lowest successful the country.)

As with immoderate studies astir AI, making predictions astir the aboriginal is tricky, nary substance wherever information centers extremity up getting built. The survey acknowledges that a fig of factors—from improvements successful exemplary efficiency, to advances successful cooling technology, to changes successful what kinds of vigor gets added to the grid—could drastically alteration the magnitude of vigor and h2o that ends up being utilized implicit the adjacent fewer years. There’s besides a anticipation that the AI bubble whitethorn burst, leaving a scattered postulation of half-built projects and contracts astir the country. (Power issues are already leaving immoderate information centers sitting idle for years.)

Part of what could hap depends connected the governmental volition for moving disconnected fossil fuels. Nebraska, for instance, has monolithic imaginable for upwind energy—one of the reasons it’s named successful the investigation arsenic a bully spot for information centers—but has to day not really built retired that capacity; Nebraska’s utilities person alternatively invested heavy into much earthy state this year. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has spent months putting its digit connected the standard to beforehand fossil fuels to powerfulness the AI boom.

A grid that doesn’t modulation to renewable vigor could mean superior occupation for the climate, fixed however aggressively information centers are expanding crossed the country. In the astir utmost scenarios, the investigation finds, the US’s information halfway buildout could make up to an other 44 cardinal tons of c dioxide equivalent each year—more than full countries similar Hungary, Portugal, and New Zealand each generated successful 2022.

The worst-case script for the environment, You says, is if AI request outstrips ratio gains successful computing successful the coming years, portion the modulation to renewable vigor slows down. “We cognize request is picking up precise quickly, but it could beryllium adjacent faster with each these caller applications, much devices, agentic AI, each these things,” says You. “It’s going to beryllium a problem.”

But the survey besides claims that developments successful technology, similar those for cooling and powering information centers, successful summation to siting information centers correctly, could drastically amended some emissions and h2o use. Outside experts, meanwhile, caution against trying to foretell emissions from what is inactive a rapidly evolving industry, with tons of antithetic variables involved.

“I effort not to enactment excessively overmuch worth connected circumstantial numbers,” says Noman Bashir, the Computing and Climate Impact Fellow astatine MIT’s Climate and Sustainability Consortium, who was not progressive successful the study. Bashir points retired that information centers installing their ain vigor onsite—like gathering their ain earthy state plants oregon installing star panels and batteries abstracted from the grid—as good arsenic advancements successful immoderate cardinal caller technologies, similar nuclear, could person a overmuch bigger interaction connected wide emissions than the survey calculates.

But Bashir praises a basal decision of the paper: that tech companies that made net-zero pledges are improbable to conscionable them, fixed the unreserved to physique information centers. Big Tech players similar Google and Microsoft person softly acknowledged successful caller sustainability reports that their absorption connected AI is making the promises they made connected cutting emissions overmuch harder to achieve.

You hopes that his enactment helps make much transparency connected emissions from the companies driving the buildout—something, helium says, that could beryllium analogous to the nutrition labels connected food.

“The aboriginal is going to beryllium overmuch faster, overmuch bigger,” helium says. “Keeping sustainability successful caput successful the aboriginal signifier is overmuch amended than aboriginal on, successful presumption of however AI computing infrastructure volition make and turn successful our country.”