Loudoun, the wealthiest county in the United States, home to the internet and artificial intelligence capital of the world

And now more facilities are being built.

Earlier this year, Emily Kasabian was walking her newborn son down a picturesque street in her Virginia neighborhood when she spotted something blocking her path.

There was a sign across the street announcing the construction of a data center.

When Kasabian bought the house two years ago, he said he was relieved to be away from the data centers that took over other parts of the county.

He said the lack of a center nearby was the reason many of his neighbors decided to live there.

“I never expected a data center to be built across the street,” he said. “If I had known what was going on across the street, I wouldn’t have bought this house.”

She and many others oppose these large-scale facilities not only because of their imposing appearance (a typical data center is 9,300 square meters, turning entire streets into large industrial parks), but also because of their side effects.

Just steps from Greg Pillio’s Loudoun County front door sits a huge data center made of bright blue glass and concrete.

When he bought the house 13 years ago, the grounds were filled with green trees and songbirds.

We are now dealing with the impact of the Center in real time. What bothers him most is noise pollution.

“There are no birds around here anymore,” he said, noting that the noise emanating from the center scares many animals away from his area.

In addition to concerns about noise, neighbors also expressed dissatisfaction with rising electricity bills.

According to research, over the past five years, wholesale power costs have increased by up to 267% in areas near data centers. bloomberg news.

But while most local residents the BBC spoke to oppose the data centres, the industry has many influential supporters, including US President Donald Trump.

Data centers are essential to fostering growth in the burgeoning AI industry, and President Trump has said he wants the United States to be a leader in this area.

The administration announced it would “accelerate federal approval of data center infrastructure” to usher in a “golden age of American manufacturing and technology.”

The center could also have a significant impact on the local and state economy.

According to the state audit, the data center industry generates approximately 74,000 jobs annually and represents $5.5 billion in total labor income to Virginia’s economy.

Developers have found this area to be a perfect location for data centers, with a lot of flat, affordable land.

Local governments quickly got on board, giving companies like Amazon and Google the green light to start building facilities.

And the region had the added benefit of creating a hub for burgeoning new industries, and thus the right talent pool.

“Northern Virginia was really the epicenter of Internet growth and was home to AOL’s headquarters, so naturally they had the talent and the staff, so it was just easy to build[a data center]there,” said Thomas Haislip, a cybersecurity expert.

Since the industry began to rapidly flourish at the beginning of this century, regulation of the center has been limited.

Earlier this year, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed a state law regulating the centers.

Dan Diori, vice president of national policy at the Data Center Coalition, an industry group, said the industry needs to better communicate the benefits of data centers and listen to people’s concerns. But he doesn’t think further regulation is necessary.

Data centers aren’t going away, he said. They are and will continue to be the backbone of the 21st century economy.

But some residents, like Barbara Day, say people don’t have to choose between finances and quality of life.

“These data centers are being built faster than we imagined, and then we’re backtracking to fix the problems,” he said.

According to market reports, as of August 2025, there are more than 1,100 data centers across the United States, with approximately 400 new centers under construction.

Activists like Kasabian hope to reduce that number by pressuring state and local legislatures to delay or cancel projects.

“This is a beautiful, great place to live, but if we allow this type of development to continue and expand, we’re eroding what is a great place to live, and unless we start making dramatic changes, we’ll start to see the effects very quickly.”

The mother of two knows she may not win this battle and that a data center may soon pop up in front of her idyllic suburban neighborhood, forcing her family to make the difficult decision to move.

“The question is, do we want to stay in this county? How do we know where to move next time so that the same thing doesn’t happen?”

Subscribe here Sign up for our new newsletter and we’ll bring you the week’s best content every Friday.

Don’t forget that you can also receive notifications in the app. Please download and activate the latest version.