Virginia has a long data center history. The University of Virginia in Charlottesville was one of the nodes for the National Science Foundation’s Internet precursor Computer Science Network (CSNET) during the 1980s, before the Commonwealth became an interconnection and colocation hub in the 1990s and 2000s with the rise of the MAE-East Internet Exchange Point in Tyson’s Corner, Fairfax County.

The data center expansion explosion in Virginia since the mid-2000s, however, has been driven largely by the major cloud providers. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all have a significant presence in Virginia and Loudoun, building their own data centers and leasing just as many from third parties. But it is Amazon that is thought to constitute the largest footprint of the three.

Despite its parent company's Seattle roots, Virginia, especially Northern Virginia (NoVA) has always been the home of Amazon’s cloud operations. The state, and specifically London County, hosted Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) first data centers when the book company launched its first cloud facilities in 2006.

Loudoun and the rest of Northern Virginia (NoVA) has always been a key hotspot for the cloud company. Today, the company is known to own or lease data centers around Haymarket, Manassas, Ashburn, Sterling, Chantilly, Warrenton, and McNair, to name a few, spanning across Loudoun, Fairfax, Prince William, and Fauquier Counties.

The company’s exact footprint isn’t known, but totals more than 50 data centers across the region, with dozens more in development. Greenpeace estimated the company had 1.7GW of capacity back in 2019, having more than doubled that figure since 2015. Amazon's US-East Northern Virginia cloud region has been described as the largest single concentration of corporate data centers in the world.

“The Commonwealth of Virginia has long been an important place for Amazon and AWS, hosting the first data centers when AWS launched in 2006, and housing Amazon’s second headquarters,” Shannon Kellogg, AWS vice president of public policy for the Americas, tells DCD. “We remain committed to Virginia, having invested more than $63 billion in the state since 2011, with announced plans to invest $35 billion more by 2040.”

“Virginia is a world leader in innovation and cloud computing, thanks to its investment in a highly-skilled workforce and emphasis on long-term public and private partnerships,” he added. “These robust networks are not by accident—they reflect how the internet was born as a defense communication project that grew into the modern digital revolution that we know and use in our everyday lives.”

Amazon continues to grow across Virginia

In January 2023, AWS announced that it planned to invest an additional $35 billion in Virginia to establish multiple data center campuses in new locations across Virginia by 2040. Governor Glenn Youngkin’s office called this is the largest capital investment in Virginia's history.

At the time, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership said the announced deal had been five years in the making, noting: “In the various iterations of the project, the needs shifted from 50-acre sites to multiple 1,000-acre campuses with 15-year development plans.”

But times change, and the geography of Amazon's data center footprint is changing. While remaining in its traditional Northern Virginian heartlands, the company is planning to aggressively expand further south, with dozens of buildings totaling millions of square feet across the state.

As well as growing its existing footprint Loudoun, Fairfax, and Prince William with new facilities, DCD has seen AWS active with plans for new projects in Fauquier, Culpeper, King George, Spotsylvania, Stafford, Louisa, Orange, and Caroline Counties.

In June 2023, Amazon filed for four data center campuses totaling more than 10 million sq ft in Spotsylvania County. All four – the Summit Crossing Tech Campus, Carter’s Store Tech Campus, Cosner Tech Campus, and the Orrock Tech Campus – have since received zoning approval.

In September 2023, Amazon filed for a 1.7 million sq ft data center campus in Louisa County. The company aims to develop six two-story buildings offering 256,284 sq ft (23,810 sqm) and a single two-story building offering 185,864 sq ft (17,270 sqm) on 153 acres on the east line of Kentucky Road (Route 652), east of the intersection of Haley Drive and Kentucky Road, for a project known as the Lake Anna Tech Campus. A second campus in the county is also in the works.

In Stafford County, filings suggest the company is planning to develop 510,000 sq ft (47,380 sqm) of data center space across two two-story buildings on a site in the town of Stafford, as well as a new substation, on a site known as the Potomac Church Tech Center.

This list is far from exhaustive. There are likely many more projects that have flown under the radar, and a large portion of the facilities being developed up and down the Commonwealth by data center developers and wholesalers will likely end up being leased to Amazon once complete.

Amazon was at one point looking to head north of Loudoun and develop sites in Maryland’s Frederick County, just across the Potomac River. The company reportedly pulled out, however, after county officials couldn’t move the project along quickly enough for Amazon’s liking.

Many of these new projects are in rural counties that traditionally have had little to no data center activity. The scarcity of land and power in the traditional NoVA heartland is partly driving this move further south. But while the AI bubble and subsequent race for capacity has no doubt sped things up, the company has long been looking to expand its footprint across the state, with plans going back several years in some cases.

That $35 billion number announced in 2023 could also be much higher, given the current rate of build-out. Not all of that investment will be outside NoVA; DCD understands Amazon is still keen to expand in Loudoun and the surrounding counties, as evidenced by recent land and building purchases.

DCD also understands that Amazon is evolving how it is developing its facilities as it moves towards denser AI racks that may have smaller overall footprints than its previous facilities.

Pushback against Amazon and others

Being the biggest data center company in the business, however, naturally attracts attention. Especially from those opposed to such developments. Its becoming increasingly common to see public meetings about data center developments carry on long into the night, often with hundreds of people speaking their mind. Amazon-tied developments have often seen some of the strongest opposition.

Many pockets of the organized opposition in Virginia today can trace their roots back to a power lines project for an Amazon data center. In 2017, Dominion looked to build a new above-ground high voltage power line through the Carver Road neighborhood in Prince William County to serve an Amazon data center in Haymarket.

The power line project led to the creation of the Coalition to Protect Prince William County, an opposition group that regularly organizes residents against new data center developments. The case went to court and, eventually, the power line was partially buried. The Piedmont Environmental Council has also told DCD that other Amazon projects helped bring its attention to the growing issue of data center expansion in Virginia.

While it never a secret to those in Loudoun County, that case brought the data centers and their growing expansion to the attention of more people than ever outside the traditional data center alley. And that opposition has only grown since. And while far from the only target, Amazon has taken the brunt of that opposition, from residents and officials alike.

Amazon has faced opposition and legal challenges to its Culpeper, but has managed to push its development through the permitting process. The project was narrowly approved by the county board of supervisors despite the planning commission recommending denial of the project.

Amazon filed to develop a site in Fauquier County in 2022, hoping to build a 220,000 square-foot (20,450 sqm) data center in the town of Warrenton. After seeing major pushback from local residents, proposal was postoned for a while, but granted permission by February 2023. Local activists filed a lawsuit to try and block the development, but the project is still seemingly going ahead.

Another project was shelved in Manassas, Prince William County; an area where Amazon has a large and growing presence. In October 2024, county supervisors shelved an proposal to build three Amazon data centers on 52 acres along Ashton Avenue. The proposal was previously recommended for denial by the county planning commission, citing concerns regarding noise, impacts on local wildlife, and the site's proximity to residential areas. The company reiterated its intention to build on the site once county concerns have been met.

Plans for what could have been Amazon’s biggest projects in Virginia stalled in King George County. September 2023 saw the company granted permission to develop an 869-acre data center campus at the old Birchwood power plant on State Route 3 near Sealston. The campus could total 19 data centers spanning 7.25 million sq ft (673,550 sqm).

However, after a change of local government, new officials decided to backtrack on the agreement, saying the money being offered to the county by Amazon wasn’t enough to justify giving up land to the company.

On the King George development, Kellogg tells DCD: “We’ve worked closely with King George County through open hearings and forums. AWS has been committed to listening and understanding the community’s needs and priorities so that our data centers drive job creation, investment, and programs that specifically benefit King George and its residents.”

When asked about Amazon’s impact in moving into new areas, Kellog noted the benefits the company brings to locals through jobs and education.

“We remain committed to strengthening the communities where we operate by supporting programs that benefit residents, families, and businesses alike,” he says. “As we increase our presence in the Commonwealth, we will continue to expand our community-focused efforts, in close collaboration with local organizations, which include local skills training initiatives for learners of all ages, youth STEM and education programs, and environmental stewardship.”

He added: “When we go into a new location, there are often hundreds or even thousands of jobs to build and run our data centers. We partner with community colleges and trade schools to develop a workforce of cloud engineers, electricians, fiber optic cable splicers, and more.”

Amazon looks for power

Amid a dearth of space and power in Loundoun – along with an increasingly hostile reception from local and officials alike – Amazon is one of many data center companies looking to develop outside the traditional Loudoun homeland. The sudden rush to deploy capacity quickly for AI uses cases is also forcing companies to become more creative with how and where they find power.

On power, Kellogg pointed DCD to Amazon’s July 2024 announcement that all its energy usage is matched with renewable power and the company’s energy efficiency efforts. He also noted that the grid has challenges that need deal with.

“Right now, grids across the country are limited in how much energy they can accept. While we’re working with utilities and energy companies to fast-forward new solar, wind, and other carbon-free energy projects to meet rising demand, the grid also needs to be modernized so it can handle that demand,” he says.

“More than 70 percent of the US grid is 25 years old or older, and across the United States, there is currently approximately 2.6 million MW of renewable energy and storage projects waiting to come online—nearly double the current amount of US generation capacity. To help address this, Amazon teams are engaging with energy regulators and other officials at the federal and state levels to help support grid modernization, remove permitting obstacles, and deploy grid-enhancing technologies.

Amazon recently worked alongside RMI on a report exploring the potential impact grid enhancing technologies (GETs) could have on the PJM electric transmission system, finding that the application of GETs could facilitate the interconnection of 6.6 GW of new solar, wind, and storage generation across five states within the PJM region – comprising Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia – by 2027.

“Considering that GETs can be deployed quicker and cheaper than traditional transmission infrastructure upgrades, they could unlock a significant amount of renewable energy generation that is stuck in the PJM interconnection queue in the near term,” he says.

Since DCD spoke to Amazon for this piece, the company announced a partnership with Virginia utility, Dominion Energy, to explore the development of an SMR project near Dominion’s existing North Anna nuclear power station. The company said this will bring at least 300MW of power to the Virginia region.

Though there are few details announced, Dominion said the Memorandum of Understanding documents the companies' efforts to “jointly explore innovative ways” to advance SMR development and financing while also mitigating potential cost and development risks for customers and capital providers.

It’s clear Amazon is unlikely to slow down in Virginia any time soon. In the weeks this writer has been working on this piece alone, the company has reportedly acquired more land in Manassas and been named as the customer of Starwood’s upcoming data centers in Herndon, Fairfax County.

While that may be music to the ears of hyperscale developers, local opposition groups may well be steeling themselves for more conflict for years to come.