Virginia’s Data Center Boom Is Even Bigger Than You Think

Virginia is for data centers. Big ones.

Big Tech companies filed permits for 54 new data centers in the state in the first nine months of 2025, according to a Business Insider tally.

The number represents the state’s single largest spike in planned data centers in any one year, and a 16% increase from Virginia’s 2024 total.

Amazon-built data centers represent the bulk of the new construction, with 28 planned facilities, according to Business Insider’s count. The tech giant had 177 data centers built or in construction nationwide by the end of 2024, according to the analysis. The new planned data centers in Virginia would grow Amazon’s fleet to 205, a 15% increase.

The new Virginia permits also reveal how Big Tech companies are increasingly building larger, more power-intensive data centers. Business Insider previously identified 322 “hyperscale” facilities built or under construction nationwide at the end of 2024 that consume an estimated 40 megawatts of electricity or more each.

The new permits push this count to 370. All but one of Amazon’s new planned data centers are among the largest in Business Insider’s analysis. These giant data centers can consume as much power as a small city and up to several million gallons of water a day.

An Amazon spokesperson said Business Insider’s methodology for estimating electricity use is “flawed and can lead to inaccurate conclusions.” (See more about Business Insider’s methodology, and Amazon’s response, here.)

This recent explosion of Virginia data center construction comes amid unprecedented nationwide investment in AI infrastructure. In June, construction spending on US data centers reached an all-time high of $40 billion, a Bank of America Institute report found. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta are pouring cash into the rush to build even more. The tech giants’ combined capital expenditures could reach an estimated $320 billion this year, primarily for AI infrastructure, an analysis of financial statements by Business Insider found.

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Virginia is historically the epicenter of the data center construction boom in the US, with the most data centers in the country by far concentrated in Northern Virginia, known as “Data Center Alley.” Data centers in the state have emerged as one of the largest flashpoints in a national wave of grassroots resistance from residents worried about their impact on housing, the environment, and quality of life, even as they have promised to bring new tax revenue.

Data centers in Virginia already used a quarter of the state’s electricity in 2023. Business Insider estimated that if all the data centers built or in construction in the state by 2024 come online, at the low end, they would consume around the same amount of electricity as New York City used in 2024.

Overall, the 54 new planned data centers drive Business Insider’s electricity estimate another 26% higher.

Collectively, Business Insider estimates that if Virginia’s 383 data centers already built or in construction as of September 2025 all come online, they will use between 66.5 terawatt-hours and 106.4 terawatt-hours annually. The low end is roughly equivalent to the amount of power the entire state of Minnesota used in 2023; the high end is more power than Tennessee used that year.

To investigate data center expansion across the country, Business Insider filed requests with all 50 states and Washington, DC, for the air permits that regulate backup generators at every data center.

As of 2010, there were 311 data centers nationwide, Business Insider previously found. That number nearly quadrupled, to 1,240 data centers built or approved for construction by the end of 2024, the most comprehensive tally to date.

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