In 2024, the biggest data-center operators faced a constraint that money alone could not immediately solve: finding enough electricity in places where the grid, land and construction pipeline could support rapid expansion.
That changed the map for hyperscalers—large technology companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Google and Meta. Northern Virginia and other established hubs remained important, but the next wave of facilities increasingly pointed toward Ohio, Indiana, Louisiana, Wisconsin and other lower-density markets.
For investors, taxpayers and households, the important question is not simply which company announced the largest project. It is whether the promised investment becomes commissioned capacity, who pays for the supporting infrastructure, and how much electricity and water the facilities will require.
What counts as a hyperscaler—and what does “biggest” mean?
A hyperscaler is a large cloud or internet company that builds or controls infrastructure capable of expanding across many data centers and regions. The company may own and operate a facility, lease space from a data-center specialist or develop a campus with partners.
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“Biggest data center” is not a precise category. A project can be the biggest by square footage but not by computing capacity. Another can have the largest planned power connection while still being years from operation.
| Metric | What it tells you | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| Announced investment | The company’s projected spending commitment | That the full amount has been spent or construction has begun |
| Campus footprint | Land or building space planned for the site | How much computing equipment is installed |
| Utility capacity | Potential electrical supply available to the campus | Actual IT load or completed capacity |
| Critical IT load | Power available for servers and networking equipment | Total electricity used by cooling and other systems |
| Operational capacity | Infrastructure that has been commissioned and can serve workloads | Future expansion phases |
That distinction matters because a multibillion-dollar press release can include future buildings, land, power infrastructure, equipment, tax incentives and several construction phases. It should not automatically be treated as a single operational facility.
Why power displaced proximity to users in 2024
Traditional cloud expansion often emphasized network latency and proximity to major population centers. Artificial-intelligence workloads changed the calculation. Training large models requires enormous clusters of specialized processors, high-speed internal networking and dependable power. Those workloads can often be located farther from end users than interactive applications can.
CBRE reported that data-center occupiers increasingly prioritized locations able to provide power within 18 to 24 months. That is a major shift in site selection. A remote site with available transmission capacity can be more valuable than a prime metropolitan location where a grid connection may take years.
JLL reported that Atlanta had the most colocation capacity under construction in its mid-2024 analysis, while Northern Virginia had fallen to fifth place. Power-grid constraints were a significant factor. Northern Virginia remained a major data-center market, but it was no longer safe to assume that every large new project would go there.
CBRE identified Northern Indiana, Idaho, Arkansas and Kansas as markets likely to attract hyperscalers and developers. Charlotte, Northern Louisiana and Indiana also received significant attention because of land availability, incentives and access to power.
Major U.S. projects announced in 2024
The following projects show how the market was spreading beyond the traditional hubs. Their figures describe announced or planned investment unless otherwise stated.
| Location | Company and announcement | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio | AWS announced a potential $10 billion expansion, including up to eight new sites by the end of 2030. The first new Fayette County site was estimated at $5 billion. | A large, phased build-out in a state with industrial land, utility infrastructure and an established workforce. |
| St. Joseph County, Indiana | AWS announced an estimated $11 billion investment and at least 1,000 jobs. | A major hyperscale commitment in a secondary market with room for expansion. |
| Fort Wayne, Indiana | Google announced a $2 billion investment in its newest Indiana data-center campus. | Indiana attracted more than one hyperscaler, although this was a separate project from AWS’s St. Joseph County development. |
| Richland Parish, Louisiana | Meta announced a more than $10 billion, 4-million-square-foot campus, which it described as its largest data center at that time. | A rural or semi-rural site can support a very large footprint and dedicated infrastructure. |
| Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin | Microsoft announced $3.3 billion through the end of 2026 for cloud and AI infrastructure. The first facility became fully operational in June 2026. | The project linked Midwest industrial capacity with AI-focused infrastructure and workforce development; its later operational status shows why announcements and completed capacity should be distinguished. |
These announcements should not be ranked as though they measure the same thing. Meta’s 4-million-square-foot figure describes building space. AWS’s Ohio and Indiana figures describe projected investment. Microsoft’s Wisconsin figure describes a spending program through a stated date. None, by itself, is a comparable measure of live computing capacity.
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AI is changing the physical design of data centers
AI servers place different demands on facilities than many conventional cloud workloads. High-density processor clusters require more power per rack, faster connections between machines and more sophisticated cooling. The supporting electrical and mechanical systems must be designed around those loads from the start.
Meta said its next-generation infrastructure was being designed for generative AI, recommendation systems and research. Its custom MTIA chip was already deployed for production workloads in 2024.
AWS said its new data-center components would combine changes to power systems, cooling, rack design and control systems. AWS claimed that the design could provide 12% more computing power per site and reduce the number of data centers needed for equivalent compute capacity. That is an AWS-specific claim, not a general industry benchmark.
Liquid cooling is part of the industry’s response to higher rack densities, but it is not accurate to say every AI data center requires it. Cooling choices depend on the processors, rack design, climate, workload and facility architecture. Air cooling remains part of the broader data-center mix.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsGoogle also said it broke ground in 2024 on 11 new Cloud regions and data-center campuses, including locations in South Carolina, Indiana and Missouri as well as sites outside the United States. The announcement illustrates that expansion involved both new U.S. markets and international regions.
Hyperscalers are trying to solve the power problem directly
Waiting for a conventional utility interconnection can delay a project even after land and financing are secured. In response, hyperscalers and their partners began exploring ways to develop electricity and data-center capacity together.
In December 2024, Google and Intersect Power announced plans to develop U.S. industrial parks with gigawatts of data-center capacity co-located with new clean-energy plants. Google said the approach could reduce transmission requirements and shorten the time needed to bring capacity online.
There are several different arrangements behind the broad phrase “clean energy,” and they have different financial and operational meanings:
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- Grid-connected capacity: electricity supplied through the public transmission and distribution system.
- Behind-the-meter generation: power produced on-site or directly dedicated to the campus.
- Renewable-energy procurement: a contract to purchase renewable electricity or its attributes, which does not necessarily mean the facility is physically powered by renewable electricity every hour.
- Firm capacity: dependable power available when required. A wind or solar project’s nameplate capacity is not the same as firm data-center supply.
This distinction is relevant to investors and local residents. A project may bring new generation, substations and transmission upgrades, but the costs and ownership arrangements can vary. Public utilities, private developers, hyperscalers and taxpayers may all have different roles.
What the expansion means for local economies and household finances
Data centers can produce large construction contracts and substantial tax revenue, but their permanent employment is usually modest relative to the size of the capital investment. Meta’s Louisiana announcement projected more than 5,000 peak construction workers and more than 500 operational jobs once complete. Microsoft’s Wisconsin announcement projected 2,300 union construction jobs by 2025 and included an AI workforce initiative.
For a local government, the financial questions go beyond the headline investment:
- Who pays for grid upgrades? A new campus may require substations, transmission lines and other utility work.
- Are tax incentives performance-based? The public benefit is stronger when incentives depend on actual construction, jobs, tax payments or power milestones.
- Will utility rates rise? Regulators may need to determine whether large customers pay the full incremental cost of serving them.
- How much water will cooling require? Usage varies significantly by facility design, climate and cooling system.
- What happens if a project is delayed? Announced phases can be postponed, resized or cancelled if demand, financing or grid access changes.
For individual investors, hyperscale construction creates potential beneficiaries across semiconductors, networking, electrical equipment, power generation, construction and data-center real estate. But a company’s exposure is not proven merely because it appears in a project announcement. Investors should check whether a supplier has a signed contract, how much revenue is concentrated in a single customer and whether the project is funded and under construction.
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The U.S. is moving inland, but not abandoning global regions
The power-first trend does not mean every workload will move to a rural campus. AI training and other batch workloads can tolerate more distance from users. Inference, databases and interactive applications still benefit from low latency. Regulated customers may also require data to remain in a particular country or region.
Subsea cables, terrestrial fiber and cloud-region architecture therefore remain important. The likely model is a distributed one: large inland campuses for power-intensive compute, paired with regional facilities closer to customers.
International expansion continued as well. Uptime Institute identified Asia-Pacific as a rapidly expanding region with the largest number of new developments among the regions it examined. Microsoft said in December 2024 that construction had been completed on three sites for its Saudi Arabia cloud region, with availability expected in 2026. Such projects support data residency, sovereign-cloud requirements and local demand, even when they are not the cheapest locations for electricity.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The scale of the market—and the limits of the headline numbers
CBRE reported that North American primary-market supply increased 34% to approximately 6,922 megawatts in 2024. The firm linked the increase to demand from AI companies and digital services.
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The International Energy Agency estimated that data centers consumed approximately 415 terawatt-hours globally in 2024, around 1.5% of worldwide electricity consumption. That figure covers all data centers, not just hyperscalers or AI facilities.
These figures demonstrate the scale of the build-out, but they do not provide a simple investment forecast. Capacity can be announced years before it becomes operational, and electricity demand depends on utilization, hardware efficiency, cooling design and the pace of AI adoption.
How to read the next hyperscaler announcement
- Identify the measurement. Is the number investment, square footage, megawatts, jobs or a full-campus projection?
- Check the status. Separate announced, permitted, under construction, commissioned and operational capacity.
- Find the power source. Look for the utility, interconnection timeline, generation project and responsibility for grid upgrades.
- Separate phases. A campus may contain several buildings planned over many years.
- Test the economic case. Compare promised jobs and tax revenue with incentives, infrastructure costs and resource use.
- Check the workload. Training, inference, storage and ordinary cloud services have different location and power requirements.
FAQ
What is a hyperscaler?
A hyperscaler is a large cloud or internet company, such as AWS, Microsoft, Google or Meta, that operates infrastructure designed to scale across many data centers and regions. It may own facilities, lease them or develop them with partners.
Why are hyperscalers building in places such as Ohio, Indiana and Louisiana?
These locations can offer large parcels of land, available electricity, room for transmission and utility expansion, construction labor and incentives. In 2024, access to power within roughly 18 to 24 months often mattered more than being near a traditional data-center hub.
Does a $10 billion announcement mean a $10 billion data center is already operating?
No. The figure may cover multiple buildings, future phases, equipment, land and supporting infrastructure over several years. Check whether the project is announced, under construction, commissioned or operational.
Do renewable-energy contracts mean a data center runs entirely on renewable electricity?
Not necessarily. A renewable-energy purchase agreement, renewable-energy credit, co-located generation project and hourly physical electricity supply are different arrangements. The company’s specific contract and power structure matter.
The Bottom Line
The 2024 hyperscale race was increasingly a race for dependable power, not simply the most connected metropolitan location. Ohio, Indiana, Louisiana and Wisconsin illustrated the move toward large inland campuses, while projects involving co-located generation showed that hyperscalers were beginning to treat electricity supply and data-center construction as one problem.
The largest headline does not necessarily represent the largest operating facility. For financial analysis, separate projected investment from commissioned capacity, examine who funds infrastructure and incentives, and treat power availability as a central part of the project’s economic case.
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