(TNS) — Following hours of public comment from more than 50 residents Wednesday, the Chesapeake Planning Commission denied a proposal for the city’s first industrial-size data center.
Data centers are physical facilities that house computers, servers and other networking equipment to process and distribute data. Demand for them has ballooned in recent years due to the rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Developer Doug Fuller requested a rezoning of 22.6 acres of agricultural land to light industrial to construct a 350,000-square-foot facility that processes data and computes for artificial intelligence, made possible due to high speed Internet infrastructure already established in the area. The proposed facility would be located on the west side of Centerville Turnpike and south of Etheridge Manor Boulevard…