Data centers moving to rural America

Pew’s analysis of Data Center Map finds that 67% of planned U.S. data centers (over 1,500 projects) are sited in rural counties, a reversal from the current installed base which is overwhelmingly urban. That geographic shift concentrates future power, water, land‑use and tax impacts in places that often lack existing grid capacity, permitting experience, or local political frameworks to manage rapid industrial buildout. — The rural siting trend reframes debates about AI and cloud infrastructure as questions of rural economic development, grid resilience, local governance and environmental trade‑offs, not just urban tech policy.