Ask ten different trackers how many data centers Virginia has and you will get ten different answers, from 319 to 754. So this ranking of data centers by state runs on estimated power draw instead, across all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., because counting buildings has stopped working.[1]
Virginia and Texas together draw about 27% of US data-center power, and the top five states pull nearly half of it.
The newest national number is 192 TWh for 2024, 4.7% of all US electricity, from a June 2026 federal lab update; most sites still quote the older 176 TWh.
Counting buildings misleads: Utah jumps 12 spots when you rank by power instead of facilities, and Nebraska’s 42 facilities draw 40% more power than Minnesota’s 78.
Oregon holds the biggest disclosed footprint, 24.1 million all-status square feet, 1.73 times California’s; Iowa edges California too.
Data centers already use about a quarter of Virginia’s electricity, the nation’s highest share, per the state’s own legislative auditors.
Here is the full ranking, why no two counts agree, and what it means for your bill.
Which state has the most data centers?
Which state has the most data centers? Virginia, on most trackers. This ranking’s backbone counts 665 Virginia facilities to Texas’s 413, Data Center Map lists 637, and Baxtel’s all-status pages show 754.[1][2][3]
Not every tracker agrees, though. dcmap.us (July 2026) puts Texas ahead on total listings (566 to 502) and operational facilities (409 to 319).[4] And Texas is projected to pass Virginia in total pipeline, 962 sites to 954, per Visual Capitalist (April 2026), from Aterio data (March 2026).[5]
By power, no contest. Virginia’s data centers draw an estimated 24.0 terawatt-hours a year, 15.73% of the state-array total and 41% more than Texas.[1]
This data centers by state map shades every state by estimated data-center power draw, darkest = most (Virginia, 24.0 TWh a year). Power figures are modeled estimates, 2023 vintage.Number of data centers by state (2026 counts): shaded by facility count, from 5 (Alaska, Vermont) up to Virginia’s 665.
Source: electricchoice.com state array, July 2026 edition. TWh figures are that page’s modeled estimates, 2023 vintage; counts are 2026.
How many data centers are in the US? Pick a tracker: 1,193 operating (Cleanview, which tracks only 50 MW-plus sites), 4,423 (Statista, April 2026), 4,427 (this article’s backbone array), 4,530 (Data Center Map), 5,381 (EPRI, March 2024), or 5,427 (Cloudscene, November 2025).[1][2][6][7] The spread is 4.5x, yet Google’s AI answer calls it “between 2,300 and 4,400” as if that were fact; the 2,300 end traces to no tracker we could find.
There is no federal registry. EIA’s 2021 pilot survey got 9 usable responses from 50 facilities, and a federal court halted its 2024 survey, the data later destroyed, per the Congressional Research Service (May 2026).[8] Part of the problem is the word itself: trackers lump twenty-year-old colocation floors with AI data centers that exist only in press releases.
The fused ranges make it worse. Google’s count table glues two trackers together, minimums from one database’s March snapshot and maximums from another’s February snapshot, so its ranges describe a merge, not uncertainty.[5] It also hands Virginia “more than 33,000 MW of power capacity,” a pipeline tracker’s all-status total, about 8.2 times the 4,039.6 MW of operational Northern Virginia inventory CBRE measures.[9]
Run continuously, 33,034 MW works out to roughly 289 TWh a year, more than every US data center combined used in 2024.[10] The answer at position zero is physically impossible on its own page.
Virginia is the cleanest exhibit. Ten published answers run from 319 to 754, and even the same database gave two counts five months apart, 685 and then 637.[2]
The ten Virginias: every published answer to “how many data centers does Virginia have?”, one dot per tracker, each with the universe it counts.
319754
dcmap.us (fetched Jul 2026)319 · operational
Aterio March-2026 snapshot, via Visual Capitalist (Apr 2026)320 · operational
Aterio live tracker (Jul 2026)329 · operational
Pew Research Center / Data Center Map snapshot (Feb 19, 2026)398 · operating
dcmap.us (Jul 2026)502 · all tracked
Consumer Reports (Mar 2026)nearly 600 · current
Data Center Map, live (Jul 2026)637 · listed
electricchoice.com (Jul 2026)665 · active
Pew / Data Center Map (Feb 19, 2026)685 · incl. planned
Baxtel (Jul 2026)754 · listed
Counts as published or fetched, 2025–2026; universe labels are each tracker’s own.
Data center electricity use by state
Data center electricity use by state is the steadier ranking, so the table below runs on it. Each row shows estimated annual draw in terawatt-hours, a modeled 2023-vintage figure, beside the 2026 facility count and, where disclosed, the all-status square footage.[1][3]
The concentration is the story. Virginia and Texas alone account for 26.87%, more than a quarter of US data-center power in two states; add Illinois, California, and Arizona and the top five take 48.8%, nearly half.[1] The top 15 take 81.3%.
That last figure has independent backup. EPRI, in Powering Intelligence (May 2024; 2023 data), found 15 states carrying 80% of US data-center load, from a different dataset entirely.[7] At the bottom, six states tie at 0.1 TWh: South Dakota, Hawaii, Maine, West Virginia, Alaska, and Vermont.[1]
Data centers by state: all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., ranked by estimated power draw. TWh figures are estimated, 2023-vintage; facility counts are 2026; square footage is disclosed, all-status (n/d = not disclosed, never zero). New York and North Carolina tie at 4.5 TWh and Washington and Florida at 4.2; ties are listed by facility count. Click a header to sort.
Rank
State
Facilities
Est. TWh/yr
% of US
Disclosed sqft
1
Virginia
665
24.0
15.73
n/d
2
Texas
413
17.0
11.14
n/d
3
Illinois
244
12.0
7.86
n/d
4
California
321
11.0
7.21
13,939,993
5
Arizona
190
10.5
6.88
n/d
6
Georgia
162
9.0
5.9
n/d
7
Ohio
203
7.5
4.91
n/d
8
Oregon
148
6.5
4.26
24,075,115
9
New York
155
4.5
2.95
7,676,856
10
North Carolina
115
4.5
2.95
n/d
11
Washington
142
4.2
2.75
6,982,272
12
Florida
135
4.2
2.75
2,724,500
13
Iowa
115
3.8
2.49
14,206,051
14
Nevada
72
2.8
1.83
n/d
15
Utah
48
2.6
1.7
10,142,795
16
Pennsylvania
98
2.5
1.64
n/d
17
New Jersey
95
2.2
1.44
9,182,620
18
Nebraska
42
2.1
1.38
5,614,877
19
Indiana
85
2.0
1.31
n/d
20
Colorado
70
1.8
1.18
n/d
21
Tennessee
68
1.8
1.18
3,212,140
22
New Mexico
28
1.6
1.05
n/d
23
Minnesota
78
1.5
0.98
n/d
24
Missouri
55
1.2
0.79
n/d
25
Michigan
62
1.1
0.72
n/d
26
Massachusetts
58
1.1
0.72
3,133,571
27
Connecticut
60
1.0
0.66
n/d
28
Wisconsin
52
0.9
0.59
n/d
29
Maryland
48
0.9
0.59
n/d
30
Kentucky
40
0.6
0.39
n/d
31
South Carolina
40
0.6
0.39
n/d
32
Oklahoma
38
0.6
0.39
n/d
33
Alabama
35
0.6
0.39
n/d
34
Louisiana
30
0.5
0.33
n/d
35
Wyoming
18
0.5
0.33
n/d
36
Delaware
22
0.4
0.26
n/d
37
Kansas
22
0.4
0.26
n/d
38
Mississippi
20
0.3
0.2
n/d
39
North Dakota
18
0.3
0.2
n/d
40
Arkansas
15
0.3
0.2
n/d
41
Dist. of Columbia
12
0.3
0.2
n/d
42
New Hampshire
14
0.2
0.13
n/d
43
Idaho
12
0.2
0.13
1,299,000
44
Montana
12
0.2
0.13
n/d
45
Rhode Island
8
0.2
0.13
10,400
46
South Dakota
10
0.1
0.07
n/d
47
Hawaii
8
0.1
0.07
104,000
48
Maine
8
0.1
0.07
n/d
49
West Virginia
8
0.1
0.07
n/d
50
Alaska
5
0.1
0.07
n/d
51
Vermont
5
0.1
0.07
n/d
Source: electricchoice.com July 2026 state array (counts, estimated TWh); Baxtel July 2026 all-status listings (disclosed square footage, 14 states).
More facilities does not mean more power
Utah is the proof. It sits at #27 by facility count, 48 buildings, and #15 by power, 2.6 TWh, a 12-rank jump that ties New Mexico’s for the biggest on the board.[1] Connecticut flips the other way, 60 facilities at count #22 but 1.0 TWh at power #27.
New Mexico’s 28 facilities pull roughly the same power as Minnesota’s 78.[1] Nebraska makes the cleaner case: 42 facilities drawing 2.1 TWh to Minnesota’s 1.5, 40% more power on about half the buildings.
New York shows why. Its 155 facilities, count rank #8, are mostly urban colocation sites averaging 29 GWh each, landing at power rank #9, tied with North Carolina at 4.5 TWh and ahead only on the count tie-break.[1] Phoenix-fueled Arizona runs 190 facilities at 55 GWh each, 1.2 times New York’s building count but 2.3 times its power.
Count rank versus power rank, out of 51. Virginia and Texas hold still; Utah and New Mexico each jump 12 places when you rank by power; Minnesota drops 6.
#1#51
Virginia665 sites (#1) → 24.0 TWh (#1) 0
Texas413 sites (#2) → 17.0 TWh (#2) 0
Utah48 sites (#27) → 2.6 TWh (#15) +12
New Mexico28 sites (#34) → 1.6 TWh (#22) +12
Nebraska42 sites (#28) → 2.1 TWh (#18) +10
Connecticut60 sites (#22) → 1.0 TWh (#27) -5
Minnesota78 sites (#17) → 1.5 TWh (#23) -6
Filled = rank by facility count (2026) · hollow = rank by estimated power (2023-vintage estimates)
electricchoice.com state array, July 2026 edition; rank shift = count rank minus power rank.
Data centers use 4.7% of US electricity, and the share is climbing
Most sites still quote 176 TWh, 4.4% of US electricity, a figure from LBNL’s December 2024 report (via the Congressional Research Service) that describes 2023.[8] The revision is out. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s United States Data Center Energy Usage Report: 2025 Update (June 2026) puts 2024 consumption at 192 TWh, 4.7% of all US electricity, up 14% in one year; crypto mining is excluded.[10]
The trajectory is steeper than the level. LBNL’s reference case reaches 464 TWh by 2028, then 649 TWh by 2030, 11.8% of US electricity, inside an uncertainty band of 521 to 843 TWh (9.5% to 15.3%).[10] In the same projection, data centers account for 33% of all US electricity load growth from 2024 to 2030 and need 148 GW of new grid interconnection.
The national trajectory, every point vintage-labeled: measured years as solid bars, projections dashed, with the 2030 uncertainty band behind the Reference Case.
2023 · 176 TWh · 4.4% of US electricity LBNL Dec-2024 report, via CRS
2024 · 183 TWh IEA estimate, via Pew Research Center
2024 revised · 192 TWh · 4.7% of US electricity LBNL 2025 Update (June 2026); crypto mining excluded
2028 · 464 TWh LBNL Reference Case projection
2030 · 649 TWh · 11.8% of US electricity · band 521 to 843 LBNL Reference Case projection
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, United States Data Center Energy Usage Report: 2025 Update (June 2026); CRS R48646; IEA via Pew Research Center.
For scale, EPRI puts one ChatGPT query at about 2.9 watt-hours, roughly 10 times a traditional Google search.[7]
Why does Virginia have the most data centers?
Why does Virginia have the most data centers? Data Center Alley. The Ashburn corridor through Loudoun County and Prince William hosts AWS, Microsoft, Google, Equinix, and Vantage.[1]
CBRE’s North America Data Center Trends H2 2025 counts 4,039.6 MW of operational inventory in Northern Virginia, up 37% in a year, its largest market.[9] Demand has outrun supply, with vacancy across the primary markets at a record-low 1.4% on 9,432 MW of inventory.[9] For Loudoun County the payoff is concrete: $733 million in data-center tax revenue, 31% of county revenue.[11]
The strain is just as measurable. Data centers use about a quarter of Virginia’s electricity, the highest share in the nation, per JLARC’s Data Centers in Virginia (December 2024), with EPRI’s 2023 accounting close by at 25.59%.[11][7] Virginia is now the nation’s #1 net electricity importer, buying in 50.1 million MWh, 36% of its supply, per EIA’s 2023 state data.[12]
Virginia by the numbers: the largest market, nearly full, and a quarter of the state’s power.
4,039.6 MWoperational inventory, Northern Virginia+37% in a year · CBRE H2 2025
1.4%primary-market vacancy, a record lowCBRE H2 2025
1 in 4kilowatt-hours of Virginia’s electricity going to data centersJLARC, Dec 2024
$733MLoudoun County data-center tax revenue31% of county revenue · JLARC
CBRE, North America Data Center Trends H2 2025; JLARC, Data Centers in Virginia (December 2024).
What data centers do to your electric bill
Virginia is the preview. JLARC’s baseline is about a quarter of state electricity; a Bloomberg News analysis cited by Consumer Reports (March 2026) put data centers at almost 40% of Virginia’s consumption in 2024; EPRI’s 2030 scenarios average 36%, reaching almost 50% in the higher-growth case.[11][13][7]
The worry is already national. The same Bloomberg analysis found electricity prices up 267% over five years in areas with heavy data-center concentration.[13]
Wondering about your own bill? You have company: 78% of Americans told a November 2025 Consumer Reports survey they are somewhat or very concerned data centers will raise it.[13] One projection cited by Pew Research Center (October 2025) adds 8% to the average US bill by 2030 from data centers and crypto, more than 25% in central and northern Virginia.[14]
But the record so far cuts the other way. The Congressional Research Service (May 2026), citing an LBNL-led price analysis, reports that states with the largest data-center demand growth generally saw electricity price decreases between 2019 and 2025.[8] Scale matters too: Texas ranks #2 in data-center power, yet those facilities draw an estimated 3.45% of its enormous grid; California sits at 4.59%, Florida at 1.67%.[1][12]
The bill question runs both directions: three warnings and the counterweight almost nobody prints.
78%of Americans somewhat or very concerned data centers will raise their billConsumer Reports survey, Nov 2025
+267%electricity prices over five years in areas with heavy data-center concentrationBloomberg News analysis, via Consumer Reports
+8%projected on the average US bill by 2030, from data centers and cryptocited by Pew Research Center (Oct 2025)
Prices fellin most states with the largest data-center demand growth, 2019 to 2025CRS, citing an LBNL-led price analysis
Consumer Reports (March 2026); Pew Research Center (October 2025); Congressional Research Service R48646 (May 2026).
The biggest footprints are not on the coasts
Rank the disclosed square footage and the coasts lose. Oregon’s disclosed, all-status footprint is 24.1 million square feet, 1.73 times California’s 13.9 million, and Iowa edges California too, 14.2 million to 13.9.[3] Think Prineville and Council Bluffs, not Silicon Valley.
A true 50-state size ranking does not exist. We will not fake one.
Baxtel disclosed square footage for 14 states and gates seven of the ten biggest power states, so the master table prints n/d for the rest.[3] The disclosed column bottoms out at Rhode Island’s 10,400 square feet.
Disclosed data-center square footage by state, all-status capacity (built plus announced and under construction). Baxtel disclosed 14 states; the biggest power states are gated, so no true 50-state size ranking exists.
Oregon24,075,115 sqft
Iowa14,206,051 sqft
California13,939,993 sqft
Utah10,142,795 sqft
New Jersey9,182,620 sqft
New York7,676,856 sqft
Washington6,982,272 sqft
Nebraska5,614,877 sqft
Tennessee3,212,140 sqft
Massachusetts3,133,571 sqft
Florida2,724,500 sqft
Idaho1,299,000 sqft
Hawaii104,000 sqft
Rhode Island10,400 sqft
Baxtel per-state listings, July 2026. Disclosed, all-status square footage only; gross building area and white space are mixed, so equal square footage can hide very different power density.
The next wave is even more rural. Per a Pew Research Center analysis of Data Center Map data (snapshot February 19, 2026), 67% of planned data centers are rural, against 87% of existing ones urban, and 39% of planned facilities would land in counties with no data center today.[15]
The announced projects sketch that new map. Meta’s $27 billion Hyperion campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana; the $100 billion-plus Stargate campus in Abilene, Texas; xAI’s $20 billion build around Memphis; a 400 MW campus in Ellendale, North Dakota. Every one is announced or under construction, not operational.
What state has the most data centers per capita?
What state has the most data centers per capita? Virginia, with 7.64 data centers per 100,000 residents, 2.13 times second-place Iowa’s 3.58.[1][16] Google serves this exact question an answer with no per-capita number; the real answer is one division, 2026 facility counts over the Census Bureau’s latest five-year population estimates.
It is not close on power either. Virginia’s estimated draw works out to 2,757 kWh per resident per year, 1.80 times Oregon’s 1,528.[1][16] On facilities, Oregon (3.48 per 100,000), Wyoming (3.09), and Arizona (2.57) trail Iowa; on power per resident, Arizona hits 1,423 kWh, Nebraska 1,061, and Illinois 945.
Data centers per 100,000 residents, the five leaders. Virginia’s 7.64 is 2.13 times second-place Iowa.
Virginia7.64
Iowa3.58
Oregon3.48
Wyoming3.09
Arizona2.57
Facility counts: electricchoice.com, July 2026; population: Census Bureau ACS 2024 five-year estimates via Census Reporter.
Methodology
The ranking backbone is electricchoice.com’s July 2026 edition, a state array covering the 50 states plus Washington, D.C. (the District itself hosts 12 facilities).[1] Facility counts and hub lists are 2026-vintage; the per-state terawatt-hours are that page’s own 2023-vintage modeled estimates, labeled estimated wherever they appear. The array sums to 152.6 TWh across 4,427 facilities, the state file’s own total, never presented here as the national headline.
The national topline is LBNL’s 2025 Update: 192 TWh for 2024 (crypto mining excluded), published June 2026.[10]
Grid shares come from EPRI (May 2024, on 2023 data) and JLARC (December 2024).[7][11]
Square footage from Baxtel’s July 2026 all-status listing (14 disclosed states).[3]
Population from the Census Bureau’s ACS 2024 five-year estimates via Census Reporter.[16]
Mega-project costs and capacities are the companies’ own announcements.
We also drew hard lines: never divide MW capacity by TWh consumption, never compare figures across status universes (an operational inventory is not a pipeline total), and no 50-state percent-of-grid column, because we pulled EIA denominators only for California, Texas, Florida, and Virginia.[12] One known disagreement: this table likely understates North Dakota, ranked #39 at 0.3 TWh here, while EPRI put data centers at 15.42% of the state’s 2023 electricity.[7]
The bottom line
Two states draw about 27% of America’s data-center power, and the top 15 draw 81.3%.[1] Rank by power and the map holds still; rank by count and the answer changes with the tracker.
So when a data-center ranking crosses your feed, check two labels: the metric and the universe. Every terawatt-hour here has to come from somewhere: see how each state makes its power in our electricity generation by state breakdown.
Frequently asked questions
What states don’t want data centers?
Eleven states are weighing moratoria or restrictions on new data centers, including Vermont and New Hampshire, per Visual Capitalist (April 2026), from Aterio data (March 2026). The mood is broader than eleven statehouses: 78% of Americans told a November 2025 Consumer Reports survey they are somewhat or very concerned data centers will raise their electric bills.
In what states are data centers being built?
Data centers are being built at major scale in 14 states flagged in our ranking, including Virginia, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Wisconsin. Counting planned facilities, Pew Research Center’s analysis of Data Center Map data (snapshot February 19, 2026) puts Virginia first at 287, then Texas at 170 and Georgia at 141.
What is the biggest issue with data centers?
Power is the biggest issue with data centers: they account for 33% of all projected US electricity load growth from 2024 to 2030, per LBNL’s 2025 Update. Water is second. A 100 MW data center can use roughly 530,000 gallons a day (an IEA figure reported by the Congressional Research Service, May 2026), one Oregon city attributes about 30% of its water use to data centers, and US facilities drew about 17 billion gallons directly in 2023, per a Berkeley Lab estimate cited by Pew Research Center.
Where are all the data centers located in the US?
Most US data-center power sits in 15 states: the top 15 in this ranking draw 81.3% of the estimated total, and EPRI independently found 15 states carrying 80% of 2023 load. The signature hubs are Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley, Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix, Chicago, Silicon Valley, Atlanta, and Columbus.
How many data centers in the U.S. by 2030?
How many data centers the US will have by 2030 has no credible answer, because no two trackers agree on today’s count. The credible 2030 figures are power figures: LBNL’s reference case projects 649 TWh, 11.8% of US electricity, and Cleanview counts 1,671 planned projects that would add 370,551 MW of capacity among sites of 50 MW or more.
Congressional Research Service. “Data Centers and Their Energy Consumption: Frequently Asked Questions (R48646).” 2026. congress.gov/crs-product/R48646
Chris Kolmar has been in the real estate business for almost ten years now. He originally worked for Movoto Real Estate as the director of marketing before founding HomeSnacks.
He believes the key to finding the right place to live comes down to looking at the data, reading about things to do, and, most importantly, checking it out yourself before you move.
If you've been looking for a place to live in the past several years, you've probably stumbled upon his writing already.
