How Data Centers Became Hot Real Estate Investments

The U.S. is home to the majority of the world’s data centers with just under 3,000, compared to the country with the next-closest amount, United Kingdom, at just 360. This concentration has brought up the value of the land where the data centers are built. Prices are soaring as much as ten times the original value in one Vint Hill, Virginia case. So how did this land zoned for data construction get so valuable, and will investors keep pouring money into the infrastructure that supports AI while potentially upsetting nearby residents?

Chapters:
0:00 - Cold Open
1:13 - Where to build
2:37 - Private investments
5:18 - Pushback
7:53 - What’s next

Produced and Edited by: Christian Nunley
Additional Camera by: Katie Tarasov, Andrew Evers
Animation: Emily Rabbideau, Jason Reginato
Supervising Producer: Lindsey Jacobson, Tala Hadavi
Additional Footage: Getty Images
Additional Sources: Loudoun County, Fauquier County, AWS, NBC4 Washington, Data Center Map, CBRE

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How Data Centers Became Hot Real Estate Investments

[kinpatu]

I just finished streaming this video from a data center.

[mangowarrior]

Do what cell phone companies do, make their cell towers look like trees. Put some leaves on them data centers, make them look like trees 🤣

[Mayeverycreaturefindhappiness]

Don’t build homes around me don’t build data centers around me don’t build factories around me… hay why isn’t my local economy growing 😂

[CHL]

Pray your county have a solid tax code. Those big companies have more top tier lawyers than residents in your town, and they can report billlions in loss every year from datacenters if they want. I really don't believe they will calculate tax based on profits made possible by datacenters in your town. This is not old school manufaturing, trucks of parts come in and trucks of good go out and you know what you are taxing.

[tiberianexcalibur]

How will you destroy all these Data centers when Skynet RISES!?

[maddominican]

People wants fast internet but dont want the infrastructure 😂😂😂😂😂

[ricnyc]

You can Google the names of the largest data center companies.
Like everything else the largest shareholders will be: BlackRock, Vanguard, Street State...
Everything is owned by the same companies.

[kamrankazemifar]

I’m from the UK and having those low latency connections to data centres is really nice.

[Seanpfree]

Utility companies being exposed for being monopolies that haven't innovated or improved in decades

[glendabanta]

There was recently a story on Houston NPR about one in Texas that is being sued by a whole town because the noise it makes keeps residents awake at night, etc. I wonder if simple measures like being required to have say a band of 50 to 100 feet of trees all around the data center would eliminate a lot of the issues they cause?

[chriskuva]

at least have a preservation forest inbetween the neighborhoods and the data centers. this way they don’t see the buildings but rather have some buffer with trees.

[Nainara]

To summarize, the opponents of datacenters cite 3 concerns: (1) They're sometimes ugly buildings, (2) They sometimes cause utility costs to rise, (3) They can cause a county's revenue source to be concentrated on a boom-bust industry. And then I suppose you have the NIMBYs who blanket oppose any development or change to a community.

[Davidg-kg]

Things appear strange right now. The value of the US dollar is declining due to inflation, but it is increasing in comparison to other currencies and commodities such as gold and real estate. People are flocking to the dollar because they believe it is safer. I'm worried that rising inflation will cause my $420, 000 in retirement funds to lose value. What else could we do with our money?

[jmonsted]

There's going to be a _lot_ of empty datacentres when the AI bubble bursts.

[mabiniss]

What I don't understand is why even build them in residential neighborhoods to begin with? For something as sensitive as a data center wouldn't it make more sense to build it in an isolated area. There is cheap land by the acre in Wyoming and Texas for example where data centers can easily be built without bothering anybody away from neighborhoods. And the problem of the electrical grid can be easily remedied by simply building the towers and power lines. If a company can expend billions on building these monstrous buildings I'm sure they have the money to also build and put up those towers.

[swedesam]

At some point, people will realize what AI is negatively doing to their lives and revolt against these data centers.

[Swordfish]

And here I thought we settled the pronunciation of the word 'data' 30 years ago.

[KylePapili]

I understand historically data center geographic locations were important to consider not only for availability of power, but also low latency access for consumers of the digital infrastructure. For most of these large scale, AI training centers, the primary concern is cost efficacy and supply of power. With this in mind, I don't understand why companies are so hesitant to build these data centers in other nations with much more abundant and cost-effective electricity. Talent availability is maybe one concern however I don't think that outweighs the cost benefits of countries where power is quite literally third the cost of what it is in the United States.

Am I missing anything?

[shirkedance]

Dont build Data centers around me

Dont build industries in our town

Dont build farms near me

Dont build entertainment park's

Dam this government 😕 is sooo bad, there is so much Jobless people in my town
😂😂😅

[yuju]

What's with the inconsistency between "dahtacenter" and "day-tacenter"? I could understand if it's from different people, but it seems to be the same narrator