An Amazon Web Services data center in Haymarket, Virginia, United States, on July 9, 2025. NATHAN HOWARD/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
So this is the hidden side of that revolution: gigantic warehouses ringed with fences and equally colossal construction sites hinting at even more to come. It is impossible to wander among these soulless plots, laid out along the major arteries of Washington's suburbs. Welcome to Loudoun County in northern Virginia, which holds the world record for the number of data centers.
The area, which has unsurprisingly earned the nickname "Data Center Alley," has become both the beating heart of the artificial intelligence revolution and the testing ground for a counter-movement: Here, as across the United States, opposition has been rising against these highly visible outgrowths of an energy-hungry technology that inspires as much fascination as it does concern.
To grasp the scale of data centers in Virginia, a few figures are necessary. This East Coast state alone accounts for 12% of the world's capacity for "hyperscalers," the giants of internet data management, according to the firm Synergie Group Research. Loudoun County is home to 200 data centers, representing about 5 square kilometers of warehouses – the equivalent of the four central arrondissements of Paris. And that is just the beginning. In total, "285 million square feet [more than 26 square kilometers] in Virginia that is either approved or in the process of seeking approval, most of it is approved, and that is the equivalent of like 1,500 Walmart super centers," explained Julie Bolthouse, director of land use at the Piedmont Environmental Council, which covers a large area in northern Virginia where most of the infrastructure is concentrated.
