Prince William Chamber Panel Discussion Highlights Contributions of Data Center Industry

February 16, 2023 – Allison M. Gilmore, CAE, Data Center Coalition

On Wednesday, February 15, 2023, three Data Center Coalition members from the Northern Virginia area spoke at a panel as part of the Prince William Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Development Breakfast Series. The panel “The Business of Data Centers: Impacts and Opportunities in Prince William County,” included panelists Sarah Georgiades, Regional Community Engagement Manager, AWS, Kevin Hughes, Vice President, Policy, STACK Infrastructure, and Rohit Kinra, VP & Global Head of Hyperscale Implementation & Account Management, Iron Mountain. During the discussion, which was moderated by Data Center Coalition President Josh Levi, the panelists shared insights on the data center market in Prince William County as well as the industry's community contributions, workforce efforts, and commitment to sustainability.

Levi kicked off the conversation by asking panelists what makes a data center a data center. Kinra explained that data centers are the physical embodiment of the cloud and that all the data we use and transmit on a daily basis gets processed and stored in data centers. Hughes elaborated with examples of the different types of data centers, including those that house the computer servers of multiple independent tenants who lease only the space they need (multitenant) and others that serve one, often large customer (hyperscale).

Panelists also discussed some of the reasons for the substantial growth of the data center industry in Prince William County, including availability of land, the ecosystem of suppliers, talented workforce, and proximity to fiber cables that run through Ashburn all the way to subsea cables that cross the Atlantic Ocean. The industry’s growth in the County has led to significant local tax revenues. In 2021 alone, the data center industry contributed more than $79 million in taxes to Prince William County, an increase of 24% from the previous year. These funds were enough to pay the county’s full community development budget, including economic development, libraries, parks and recreation, planning & zoning, public works, and transportation.

Kinra explained that while data centers contribute sizable tax revenue, they use relatively few county services. For example, in Prince William County, for every $1.00 in county services used by data centers, they provided approximately $13.50 in tax revenue. Hughes highlighted that data centers also provide long-term construction jobs and have a ripple effect through an ecosystem of vendors and service providers, where each data center job supports 3.4 other jobs in the County.

Data centers also provide tremendous support to the communities where their teams live and work. Georgiades of Amazon shared examples of her company’s community engagement partnerships and initiatives in the County, including programs supporting Prince William County Public Schools. She explained the importance of STEM education and training a technology-savvy workforce.

The panel concluded with a discussion of how the data center industry promotes energy efficiency and sustainability. They explained that data centers already offer more efficient processing than computing that was traditionally dispersed across businesses operating their own independent, on-site servers. By centralizing computing resources under one roof, data centers leverage innovations in design, equipment, and technology to maximize energy efficiency. Georgiades, Hughes, and Kinra all highlighted their companies’ commitments to sustainability, including establishing and pursuing aggressive carbon neutrality goals including powering their operations with 100 percent clean energy. Georgiades indicated that AWS, now the largest purchaser of clean energy globally, will reach its goal of powering their operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of their original 2030 target.

Data centers do more with less (energy)

February 14, 2023 – WTOP News

Just 13 years ago, in 2010, nearly 80% of computing workloads resided in small, on-premise data centers run and managed by individual organizations. That flipped a few years ago with the expansion of cloud technologies. Today, nearly 90% of those data operations now exist in the cloud, supported by far fewer but far larger data centers run by cloud service providers, said Shannon Kellogg, vice president of public policy for the Americas at Amazon Web Services.

Data centers welcome in Southwest Virginia

Cardinal News – February 13, 2023

Northern Virginia is a hotbed for data centers in the Commonwealth, but other regions also have the requisite infrastructure and business environment. Will Payne, Director of InvestSWVA, makes the case in Cardinal News for Southwest Virginia as a choice location for future data centers.

Data Centers and the Community

The following article was published in Leesburg District Supervisor Kristen C. Umstattd’s constituent newsletter on February 1, 2023.

Data centers’ financial contributions to our county have been well documented. Loudoun’s data centers return more than $15 dollars in tax revenue to the county for every dollar in services they receive, enabling these data centers over the previous year to pay for almost the entire County operating budget. Compare this to housing. For every one dollar of taxes (real estate plus vehicles) paid by the average home with one LCPS student, the home will require $2.25 in school services, which cost about $18,000/year per student. Without data centers to support Loudoun’s economy, school and other public service costs would drive our projected tax rate up from $.88 to $1.43.

Over the past year, the Loudoun Board of Supervisors has heard from many Loudoun small businesses, including construction firms and contractors, restaurants, and professional service firms, about the immense impact and importance of the data center industry in driving economic development and employment in our community. The businesses that support and rely on Loudoun data centers employ over 40,000 people – equivalent to about 10% of our total population.

We know that data centers have a clear economic impact on our County. But, because data centers don’t often issue press releases, not as many people know about the tremendous contributions data centers make strengthening communities, like Loudoun, where their teams live and work. Below are a few examples from the past year:

• Data centers have been committed to educating our students and cultivating an interest in STEM and related careers. In December, Amazon Web Services launched its latest Think Big Space at Simpson Middle School in Leesburg. A collaborative effort between Loudoun County Public Schools, Loudoun Education Foundation (LEF), and CodeVA, this educational hub is dedicated to encouraging Loudoun County students to explore hands-on approaches to solving real-world problems. The data center company Equinix has promoted opportunities within the industry at career days in the county, including hosting 10 LCPS students at their corporate offices in Ashburn. Since 2018, AFCOM’s local Potomac Chapter has provided paid internships for undergraduate students within the data center community.

• Beyond their support of students and schools, data centers and their employees are committed to helping those in need in our County.

• Data centers like AWS and Equinix have supported LEF’s Backpack Coalition to provide weekend meals to food-insecure students and their families.

• Staff from STACK Infrastructure volunteered at a community farm in Purcellville, helping to harvest more than 400 pounds of food - the equivalent of 326 healthy meals, for local food pantry partners.

• Teams from Vantage Data Centers packed nearly 400 meal kits for Loudoun Hunger Relief in September and donated 200 meal bags for Thanksgiving this year.

• Leading up to the holidays, data center CyrusOne donated 10,000 square feet of office space in Sterling for collection, storage, and distribution for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots 2022 toy drive in Loudoun County.

• In November, more than 100 volunteers from the data center industry came together to aid the local bee population and help feed the food insecure for years to come at a “DCs for Bees” event led by 7×24 DC Chapter and Loudoun County Economic Development, in partnership with Host in Ireland.

• And Digital Realty’s 2022 Charity Golf Tournament and Annual Heart Walk this year raised over $93,000 in donations for the Greater Washington American Heart Association.

• The Data Center Coalition (DCC) partnered with Loudoun County Economic Development and the American Red Cross of Loudoun and Prince William Counties to host the #DataCentersSleevesUp blood drive to help address the shortage of blood across the United States. 12 DCC member data center companies participated in the campaign, logging a total of 502 blood donations, enough to save approximately 1,500 lives. In April, DCC and its members donated reusable water bottles in support of Operation Allies Welcome.

• Data centers also are actively helping to bridge the digital divide in our communities. In October, Google announced an initiative to provide free high speed wi-fi in sections of Purcellville in order to “open opportunities for learning, connection, and growth.”

In summary, data centers, their people and their business partners are good, contributing members in the communities they call home. While often unrecognized, their donations of time, money, and talent have had a tremendous impact for good in Loudoun County.

Data centers, Loudoun Education Foundation partner to promote STEM careers

January 23, 2023 – WTOP News

WTOP Radio Anchor Bruce Alan sits down with Danielle Nadler, Executive Director of the Loudoun Education Foundation, to discuss the Foundation’s partnership with the Northern Virginia data center industry. The partnership’s goal is encouraging student interest in STEM and related careers.

Local data center boom drives demand for electricians

January 11, 2023 – WTOP News

data center industry’s exponential growth in Northern Virginia over the past two decades has brought with it new and sustained employment for local electricians. In this interview, Joe Dabbs, Business Manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26, speaks with WTOP’s Bruce Alan about how the data center industry has prompted the expansion and diversification of the electrician trade.