FOX Enterprise’ Ashley Webster studies on ‘monumental’ information facilities sprouting up throughout the U.S. at fast charges, creating jobs but additionally detractors on ‘Making Cash.’
It’s a digital gold rush as data-center improvement sweeps by means of small-town America.
As demand for synthetic intelligence, cloud computing and digital storage surges, builders are racing to safe land, energy and water.
That development is turning into more and more concentrated: almost 1% of U.S. counties, roughly 33, now account for 72% of all data-center exercise as of July 2025, in line with a latest Goldman Sachs evaluation. However the map is altering virtually day by day.
One Georgia group is experiencing that shift in actual time.
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Newton County, about an hour east of Atlanta, is considered one of 4 counties that host Meta’s Stanton Springs campus.
FOX Enterprise was granted an unique look inside the ability, which opened in 2018 and has continued to broaden, with a second campus now underneath development. The 1,000-acre web site homes eight huge buildings, every roughly the size of 4 soccer fields, filled with rows of high-speed servers buzzing 24/7. The cable community is lengthy sufficient to achieve the moon and again. And it’s the place information for Fb, Instagram, WhatsApp and Meta’s different platforms is processed and pushed at report speeds.
Expertise inside Meta’s Stanton Springs Information Heart in Social Circle, Georgia. (FOX Enterprise Community)
It’s simply considered one of 26 information facilities presently underneath development or already in manufacturing within the U.S., with much more development on the horizon.
“I’ve been within the business for over 20 years, and I’ve by no means seen this degree of deal with information facilities,” KC Timmons, director of SiteOps World Operations at Meta, instructed FOX Enterprise. “It is modern. There’s a lot good that we are able to do.”
Meta’s arrival was largely welcomed, and its funding has change into a serious financial anchor for the area, creating a whole lot of jobs, supporting native contractors and producing long-term tax income for faculties and public companies. The corporate now employs roughly 400 individuals in HVAC, electrical, operations and technical roles, most of them employed from the encompassing group.
| Ticker | Safety | Final | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| META | META PLATFORMS INC. | 673.42 | +11.89 | +1.80% |
However Meta’s presence now sits alongside the explosive development the county has skilled simply this yr. And never everyone seems to be thrilled about it.
“It’s all pie within the sky,” Newton County Commissioner LeAnne Lengthy instructed FOX Enterprise. “It’s not what they are saying it’s. These large builders are available with profitable guarantees like zoning, water, electrical energy. It’s the greatest smoke-and-mirror factor you’ve ever seen.”
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Lengthy, who can be an actual property dealer within the area, questions what occurs years from now if the business’s footprint shifts and the huge buildings are not wanted.
“What occurs to the communities that we’ve misplaced?” Lengthy requested.
Newton County has change into some of the aggressive information middle build-out zones in Georgia. Since January alone, native officers say 11 extra information facilities are in varied levels of planning or development. Amazon has already begun constructing on a $25 million acreage buy – about $50,000 per acre – powered by Georgia Energy. And in close by Social Circle, the place Meta is situated and which spans each Newton and Walton counties, officers have zoned seven extra data-center initiatives with no long-term land-use plan in place.
Workers inside Meta’s Stanton Springs Information Heart in Social Circle, Georgia. (FOX Enterprise Community)
“Some would say we’re constructing the aircraft whereas flying it,” Serra Corridor, government director of the Newton County Industrial Growth Authority, instructed FOX Enterprise.
Serra mentioned Meta’s success has drawn a wave of recent curiosity to the area, making technique and coordination extra vital than ever. For the reason that starting of the yr, she says her cellphone has been ringing off the hook with inquiries from corporations trying to construct close by.
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A part of the explanation the expansion is accelerating so quickly is the county’s entry to energy, proximity to I-20 and the intensive fiber infrastructure established by Meta. By way of the Open Compute Undertaking that Meta co-founded, the initiative to create open-source {hardware} for scalable and environment friendly information facilities has helped drive down prices. The OCP initiative actively encourages and facilitates extra corporations to construct and undertake high-efficiency information middle infrastructure.
“We’re making an attempt to deliver everybody to the desk and gradual issues down,” Corridor mentioned. “It’s about engaged on the trail collectively. It takes good planning.”
Meta’s Stanton Springs Information Heart in Social Circle, Georgia. (FOX Enterprise Community)
The inflow of information facilities brings advantages past jobs. Since 2022, when Meta’s first taxable buildings got here on-line, the corporate has contributed $12 million in cumulative tax income – a quantity anticipated to rise as development continues. Earlier than Meta arrived, the identical land had been off the tax digest for almost twenty years underneath authorities possession.
Meta has additionally launched initiatives to assist small companies, comparable to workshops educating native house owners the best way to develop by means of Instagram Reels. Amazon, in the meantime, has partnered with Newton County Faculties and Goodr to open a no-cost grocery retailer offering college students with contemporary produce and shelf-stable meals.
| Ticker | Safety | Final | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMZN | AMAZON.COM INC. | 229.53 | +0.42 | +0.18% |
Nonetheless, residents say the guarantees don’t all the time match their lived expertise. A number of main producers – together with Meta, Rivian and Takeda – have partnered to recycle water again into the group, however issues persist as the event footprint grows.
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“This all has simply change into so widespread since Jan. 1,” Lengthy mentioned. “I didn’t even know what a knowledge middle was a yr and a half in the past. We’ve simply been bombarded.”
Lengthy pressured that Meta itself isn’t the problem – its campus sits in a chosen enterprise zone and hasn’t disrupted residential life. Her concern is the wave of newcomers, the chance of future vacant megastructures, and the impact speculative improvement may have on house values.
For longtime residents, the tempo of development is turning into more durable to disregard.
Lisa Miller, 64, lives close to land that when held a lumber mill and is now Amazon’s energetic development web site.
An Amazon information middle development web site in Oxford, Georgia. (FOX Enterprise Community)
“We’re not an enormous place,” Miller instructed FOX Enterprise. “Folks out listed here are into cattle, horses.” The realm has shifted amongst rural, suburban and industrial makes use of for many years, however by no means at this pace.
Blasting and heavy development have additionally raised security issues. Miller described one neighbor’s expertise: “She heard the blast – after which her entire front room ceiling fell in.”
Amazon instructed FOX Enterprise its $11 billion funding will allow AI innovation and create 1000’s of jobs, from community engineers to development staff, and likewise give again to the group.
“As we construct these services over the following a number of years, we stay dedicated to being good neighbors,” a spokesperson mentioned.
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Vitality demand is one other rising concern. Information facilities will use roughly 8% of all U.S. energy by 2030, and U.S. utilities might want to make investments round $50 billion in new era capability to assist the services, in line with Goldman Sachs.
Inside Meta’s Stanton Springs Information Heart in Social Circle, Georgia. (FOX Enterprise Community)
Regardless of the anxieties, native leaders and residents agree that the answer isn’t to reject the business – it’s to gradual the tempo, coordinate and plan for long-term penalties.
Meta, because the area’s earliest anchor, has dedicated to supplying extra renewable vitality than it consumes and turning into water-positive by 2030, aiming to mannequin accountable improvement.
“If I may say one thing to the entire nation, it will be: suppose it by means of,” Miller mentioned. “Plan it. Don’t simply stick ’em in each cow pasture that goes up on the market.”
