A short primer on what data centers are and why more are appearing near communities.
A data center is a facility that houses servers and networking equipment used to store, process, and distribute digital information. They range from small edge sites to large campuses with hundreds of megawatts of power demand.
Cloud computing, streaming, enterprise software, and AI training have increased demand for computing capacity. Operators seek locations with available power, fiber connectivity, and permissive zoning.
Large language models and other AI workloads require dense clusters of specialized hardware, which can increase electricity and water use compared with traditional office or retail development.