Coverage of data centers and their impact on business, the environment, neighborhoods, and jobs.
Monsicha Srisuantang/BI
Monsicha Srisuantang/BI
Do you live near a data center? If not, you might live near one soon.
Business Insider's new map shows 1,416 data centers built or approved for construction in 45 states and Washington, DC by the end of 2025.
Virginia is the historical epicenter of data center development in the US. Now developers are hungry for new sites. Hot spots have emerged in West Texas; outside Cheyenne, Wyoming; and in rural Wisconsin.
Our map shows every data center we found with an air permit issued through December 2025. The data table is searchable by county, state, zip code, or corporate parent, and sortable by estimated low-end, high-end, and average electricity use. Search by any address to identify the closest data centers. Select any data center on the map to see more details about the facility, and select any entry in the data table to see the data center on the map.
For any data center with an asterisk, Business Insider also identified a permit to build a dedicated power source, such as a natural gas plant, to provide electricity for that data center. Business Insider identified at least 20 permits issued to developers through the end of 2025 for power plants intended to serve data centers.
To investigate the rapid proliferation of US data centers, Business Insider filed requests with all 50 states and Washington, DC for the air permits that regulate backup generators installed at data centers. We used data in these permits to identify data center location and ownership, and estimate facility power use. This map is an updated version of the data center map we published last year. Read about our methodology in more detail here.
Business Insider's analysis of permits shows that Meta had 38 US data centers at the end of 2025, a figure that Meta says is too high. Meta says it currently has 28 data centers in the US, and that some of the permitted facilities in Business Insider's analysis are offices. Offices could have backup generators for small, on-site servers. Business Insider included these facilities because they received air permits issued with federal industry codes associated with data centers. These facilities represent 0.2% of Meta's total data center power use, according to Business Insider's estimate.
Business Insider's analysis is dependent on estimating data centers' electricity use based on the number and type of backup generators installed at each facility. Where developers are building entire power plants, some are forgoing installing backup generators altogether. As a result, Business Insider's electricity estimates are certainly an undercount, as facilities known to be huge and built with dedicated on-site or nearby power generation, such as xAI's data center complex in Memphis, Tennessee, or Meta's Hyperion Campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana, appear far smaller in Business Insider's analysis, due to a lack of permitted backup diesel generators.
Business Insider's methodology was developed in close consultation with industry and academic experts and is the same methodology used for an award-winning series published by Business Insider last year. Amazon said Business Insider's methodology is misleading because it includes a range of electricity estimates. QTS said the company's current electricity use is lower than our estimates, which project future use. Equinix says it had 79 data centers either built or under construction at the end of 2025. Business Insider identified permits for 56 Equinix data centers.
Have a tip or a question about our reporting? Reach out to Business Insider's enterprise team at [email protected].
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Hannah Beckler is a correspondent on Business Insider's enterprise team. She recently reported on the data center construction boom's impact on water, power, pollution, and local economies. "The True Cost of Data Centers" series won a 2025 George Polk Award in environmental reporting. Hannah's previous investigative reporting on attack-trained prison patrol dogs won a 2024 National Magazine Award in Video, the 2024 Hillman Award in Newspaper Journalism, the 2024 Headliner Award in News Video (10-30 minutes), and the 2023 Front Page Award for Investigative Reporting Online. Hannah was a finalist for the 2024 Livingston Award and the 2025 Livingston Award. In 2022, Hannah contributed to Business Insider's investigation on homicidal violence against transgender people, which won the 2023 Scripps Howard Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment.Get in touch! Contact this reporter by email at [email protected]. You can also share documents anonymously with Hannah by mail to:Attn: Hannah BecklerBusiness InsiderOne Liberty Plaza, 8th FlrNew York, NY 10006
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