Technology

A County Got Rich From Data Centers. Some Question ‘At What Cost?’

NYTimes Technology • Wed, 19 Aug 2026

Loudoun County, Va., hosts more than 250 data centers that bring in huge tax revenues. But some officials and residents worry the county has become too dependent on that cash.

What happened?

Loudoun County, Va., hosts more than 250 data centers that bring in huge tax revenues. But some officials and residents worry the county has become too dependent on that cash.

Story details

Loudoun County, Va., hosts more than 250 data centers that bring in huge tax revenues.

But some officials and residents worry the county has become too dependent on that cash.

Why it matters

This story helps build a stronger internal English tech archive around Technology, giving search visitors more reasons to keep browsing the site instead of bouncing after a single headline.

Original source

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/technology/data-centers-backlash-loudoun-virginia.html

The AI buildout shows no signs of slowing. And with hundreds of billions of dollars a year going into data centers and GPUs, compute has become the single biggest cost for anyone building AI products. But for all that spending, there still isn’t a straightforward way to put a price on compute — or for firms to hedge their exposure when the price changes. Silicon Data […]