On cloud nine

Virginia is world’s data center capital, reaping billions

April 27, 2023 – Virginia Business

Written by Emily Freehling

In 2007 — the same year that Apple unveiled the iPhone and Netflix introduced the idea of “streaming” movies — Buddy Rizer started aggressively targeting an industry that many of the people he worked for in Loudoun County didn’t yet fully comprehend.

“It was not an easy story to tell at first,” Rizer recalls of his early years pursuing data centers as Loudoun’s executive director of economic development. “I remember a couple of public hearings sweating through my suit as I was getting grilled by our [board of supervisors]. One of the supervisors said, ‘Mr. Rizer, if everything is going to the cloud, why do we need data centers?’”

Sixteen years later, more than 70% of the world’s internet traffic comes through Data Center Alley — six square miles in Loudoun’s Ashburn area.