Georgia has emerged as one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the country. Tech giants like Amazon, Google and Meta have built here. As digital technology and AI use increase, more data centers are coming.
On a Sunday afternoon, my 16-year-old nephew Lavanne Hyde is upstairs, in his room, playing video games. LED strip lights and a keyboard illuminate his face.
“Usually Sundays, I wake up, go to church, come home, and then hop straight on the game for like a couple hours, probably like five, six hours,” Hyde said.
He FaceTimes with friends on his phone, plays games on his personal computer, and does a whole bunch of other things.
“While I’m playing, I’ll probably watch a video or like TikTok,” Hyde said.
He’s always using the internet, so whether he realizes it or not, he’s also using data centers.
“No, I do not know anything about data centers,” Hyde said.
When we save something to the cloud, use an app or browse around online, that information has to actually go to a physical location.
“That’s what is in those data centers,” Lynn McKee said. He teaches commercial real estate at Georgia State University.
If you feel like you’ve been hearing a lot more about data centers recently, McKee knows why.
“AI has expanded that tremendously, the need for it. So that’s why you’re seeing so much of it, right now,” said McKee.
Data centers can be as large as the 99-acre campus in northwest Atlanta owned by QTS, which is bigger than two Mercedes-Benz Stadiums, or resemble an office building like Coda at Tech Square.
Justin Marchand with the Georgia Institute of Technology scans his fingerprint to start our tour of Coda. The first thing you notice is the noise.
Then the cold air.
“You have things like air handlers, essentially big fans. Water goes through a coil on them, blows out cold air,” Marchand said.
Walking across the two rooms, we pass rows of tall white metal lockers neatly organized with color-coordinated wires feeding in and out of computer components. Lights blink as information is processed.
All of this uses power.
“So an hour of operating in this room would be like your whole house for a month,” Marchand said.
That’s a lot of electricity.
According to CBRE, a global commercial real estate firm, Atlanta does not have the most data center capacity right now, but it does have a bigger percentage increase in construction than anywhere else in the country.
“It’s really just the beginning of a large, steady curve of new digital infrastructure required, new power and energy infrastructure that will be required,” Bill Thomson said. He is the vice president of marketing and product management for DC BLOX, a data center company.
When it comes to economic development, data center developers are buying land and building multi-million dollar facilities loaded with expensive high-tech equipment. But, Thomson says one thing they do not bring is many permanent jobs.
“We might have a large data center that only employs 20 or 30 people. But there’s 300 people who are involved in the construction of that data center,” Bill Thomson said.
And that can make them appealing to local communities. The additional tax revenue from these large construction projects can benefit schools and hospitals.
“It’s really just the beginning of a large steady curve of new digital infrastructure required, new power and energy infrastructure that will be required.”
Bill Thomson, vice president of marketing and product management for DC BLOX, a data center company.
“Although the data center doesn’t generate the jobs, the tax dollars it generates could have a massive impact on rural Georgia and South Atlanta,” McKee said.
Georgia offers sales tax savings to attract data center developers here. Companies can sometimes save on local real estate taxes. According to a liberal-leaning economic advocacy group, Good Jobs First, Georgia is estimated to waive close to $300 million this year in sales and use taxes for data center equipment purchases.
Some communities are starting to push back. State lawmakers are studying data centers’ energy and water use. And some officials are taking a critical look at all the tax incentives Georgia offers. McKee says companies are eyeing the southside of metro Atlanta for even more development.
“People don’t want these big data centers near their houses. But you go out and you go to South Atlanta or into rural Georgia, there’s just land, land, and land,” he said.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated incorrectly that more data centers are being built in metro Atlanta than anywhere else in the U.S. While Atlanta has a bigger percentage increase in construction than anywhere else, Virginia has more data centers currently under construction.
This story is part of the WABE Newsroom series Server South: What’s powering Atlanta’s data center growth — and what it means for you.
