By MarylandReporter.com/Capital News Service, a student-powered news organization run by the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism
A few blocks away from Lexington Market in Baltimore, inside a six-story building adorned with intricate detailing, there’s a data center that uses enough electricity to power a city roughly the size of Dundalk, Maryland.
The company that runs the over 150,000-square-foot facility announced in 2024 it would triple the data center’s capacity over the next few years to meet the needs of the booming artificial intelligence industry.
That’s just one of the dozens of data centers in Maryland that surround the Washington metropolitan area and Baltimore. Opponents say these facilities put more pressure on the state’s already fragile energy grid and contribute to rising electricity costs…