What the pick and shovel industry was to the California gold rush, data centers are to the artificial intelligence boom. Investment in data centers and their ancillary industries has accounted for the vast majority of United States’ GDP growth during the first half of 2025, with much of this investment heavily concentrated in Virginia. Although the majority of the 667 data centers that have been constructed in the state reside in Northern Virginia, multiple surrounding counties in Virginia including Fluvanna, Louisa and Culpeper counties have begun to consider regulations surrounding data centers embracing or rejecting them.
Albemarle County recently made the careful and prudent decision to hold off on modifying the existing “phase one” zoning regulations for data centers, which requires special use permits in data centers exceeding 40,000 square feet in the industrial district and any proposed data centers in the commercial district. Hyperscale and enterprise-sized data centers, the ones that cause the most adverse effects on a community, frequently exceed this size limit, and as such the existing regulations have resulted in no current proposals for any such large scale data center.
Drafting the proposal for phase two of the zoning plan for data centers was meant to create more comprehensive regulation that would not require special use permits across the county. One member of the Board of Supervisors, Ann Mallek, cited an inability to locally source the energy in a sustainable manner, the rapidly evolving nature of the nascent data center industry and concern surrounding unforeseen consequences for residents as reasons for caution about data center expansion. As this growth continues across the state, Albemarle County should remain steadfast in their position against rapid and unsupervised expansion of data centers, serving as a model of prudence in decision-making to similar county governments…