Across the country, massive industrial complexes are quietly rewriting local politics, utility systems and neighborhood futures. They are called data centers. Most residents never see inside them, yet they power the internet, cloud storage and artificial intelligence systems that increasingly structure daily life. These buildings are not offices or community spaces. They are industrial campuses packed with servers, cooling systems, backup generators and electrical substations. They consume extraordinary amounts of electricity and water, and wherever they land, they permanently alter what a community can become.
Northern Virginia is now the largest data center hub in the United States. Federal contracting requirements, proximity to government agencies and decades of infrastructure investment made the region attractive to tech corporations. That region is also one of the wealthiest in the country. With land prices rising and community resistance growing, corporate developers are looking elsewhere. They are targeting areas with less political power, fewer resources and governments under pressure to generate revenue quickly.
Data centers are already shaping elections in Northern Virginia. Land use fights and utility expansion plans dominate local campaigns. Residents have been organizing against projects that threaten regional water supplies, property values and quality of life. Maryland has become the next major front. Prince George’s County is now in a high-stakes struggle over proposed data center developments, including major projects near Landover. This is not happening by coincidence. Prince George’s is majority-Black and thus historically underinvested, though they are positioned near critical infrastructure. It is exactly the kind of place large corporations target when expansion in wealthier jurisdictions becomes politically expensive.
Washington is not immune either. Large parts of Wards 7 and 8 already live with disproportionate environmental burdens, chronic underinvestment and development decisions routinely made without community consent or rushed through short voting periods. These neighborhoods sit near major water systems, industrial corridors and publicly controlled land — conditions that consistently attract heavy industrial proposals dressed up as “economic development.” When facilities like data centers move in, they industrialize entire zones. Land that could support housing, schools, clinics and neighborhood businesses becomes locked into single-use infrastructure that no one can live near. Industrial cooling systems run day and night. Stadium-level security lighting will flood residential and retail spaces. Diesel generators, chemical coolants and dense electrical compounds will be deployed in our air, soil and water. Wherever these massive industrial environments appear, so do rising respiratory illness, neurological stress and cancer rates and man-camp violence. Communities across the country are already reporting and organizing around these impacts. From Tennessee to Georgia to Arizona, residents are organizing against data center projects as electric bills climb and their neighborhoods are steadily remade into industrial sacrifice zones.
The environmental footprint alone demands serious attention. A single large data center can consume as much electricity as tens of thousands of homes. Many use millions of gallons of water every year for cooling. As equipment becomes obsolete, enormous volumes of electronic waste follow that will compile annually. Servers and chips are replaced on rapid cycles, sending heavy metals and toxic components into global disposal streams that disproportionately harm poor and nonwhite communities. When these facilities arrive, residents should expect rising utility infrastructure projects, grid strain, pressure on water systems and a landscape increasingly shaped around industrial needs rather than human ones.
This pattern is familiar to Black and brown communities across the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area. Wealth is extracted and environmental risk is localized, but decision-making power often sits elsewhere. The same dynamics that shaped highway placement, stadium construction and industrial zoning are now driving digital infrastructure. Data centers become the newest form of environmental redlining.
This doesn’t mean technology itself is the enemy. Artificial intelligence and cloud computing hold real potential. The problem lies in how carelessly and inefficiently these systems are being deployed. Far more energy-efficient models already exist. Chinese researchers have built large language systems that operate with dramatically lower energy demands. Instead of requiring efficiency before expansion, corporate leaders are rushing to scale unfinished technologies and are forcing communities to absorb the environmental cost. The result is a public subsidizing private experimentation.
We have seen this story before. The United States once dismantled its rail systems under pressure from automobile interests, locking the country into car dependency. Today, more efficient transportation and energy systems are already operating in other parts of the world, while U.S. policy continues to protect entrenched corporate interests. As the climate crisis deepens globally, this model limits the options available to communities and forecloses more sustainable paths forward. Each time, communities pay the price for corporate convenience.
D.C. still has time to choose differently. We can insist that technological development meet rigorous efficiency, water-use and environmental standards before it reshapes our neighborhoods. We can prioritize land for housing, neighborhood retail, health clinics, youth centers and cultural spaces. We can build mutual aid hubs, accessible transit nodes and community-owned infrastructure that strengthens daily life instead of isolating it. We can demand investment in people rather than permanent industrial footprints.
We must oppose data center expansion threatening our communities, our utilities and our future. We must fight for policies that protect vulnerable neighborhoods, require transparency and center public benefit. Not concrete fortresses that drain our water, strain our grid and lock away land.
There is incredible technology in this world that could improve life for billions. Whether it does so depends on the wisdom and humility of those who shape the decisions. This struggle didn’t start with us, but we are proud to carry it forward. Black and brown communities in D.C. have always turned pressure into power and pain into purpose.