What happened
A recent ranking by TRG Datacenters has named Virginia as the top state for artificial intelligence infrastructure, with a perfect score of 100 on the company's readiness index. This ranking comes as spending on AI infrastructure is expected to reach $3 trillion by 2030. Virginia currently hosts seven large AI data center sites with a combined capacity of 1,085 megawatts.
Other states, including Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas, also ranked high in the study, which considered factors such as capacity, electricity consumption, carbon emissions, and water availability. However, different entities have ranked the states differently, with CNBC naming Ohio as the top state for infrastructure and Labrynth ranking Texas as the number one state for data centers.
A growing backlash over power, water, and incentives for data centers is also underway, with some localities considering bans on new projects and governors in several states imposing moratoriums on data center construction. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has called for a statewide pause on big data center projects, while Illinois and New York have frozen new data center incentive deals.
