What was once primarily farmland in Henrico County has evolved into a data center hub over the last five years, dramatically transforming the local economy.

Currently home to 16 data centers, with more in the works, the county sees the facilities as a way to diversify its economy. The data centers handle internet traffic, including for major companies like Google and Meta, at scales thought unthinkable a generation ago.

Internet traffic travels on undersea cables laid across the oceans. After Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, the storm hurt cable conductivity with Europe. It was thought that building redundancy would help prevent this from happening again, and so the Richmond Network Access Point (NAP) came to fruition.

Its 2017 opening turbocharged Henrico’s data center growth. The QTS Richmond NAP is where three subsea cables meet — coming from Spain, Brazil/Puerto Rico, and France.

The major subsea cables converge in Virginia Beach and run along I-64 before landing at White Oak Technology Park.

Virginia is currently home to more than 300 data centers. While 80% are situated in Northern Virginia, the remaining are particularly clustered in Henrico and Mecklenburg counties.

The surge in demand for data center services has proved a boon to Henrico’s economy.

“There are industrial towns, banking towns or government-supported communities like Hampton Roads or Northern Virginia,” said Anthony Romanello of the Henrico Economic Development Authority (EDA). “Our economy is very diverse which makes it strong and more resilient.” 

Henrico is now also home to the DE-CIX Richmond facility, which hosts Google’s Dunant cable. That connection offers a 250 TBPS capacity - some of the fastest Internet speeds in the world. (A gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes, and a terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes.)

“We have tremendous capacity to move data because of the infrastructure we have,” said Romanello.

Meta’s Henrico Data Center was completed two years ago. Situated in White Oak Technology Park, the 130-acre facility boosts the company’s technologies, which include platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. 

“We selected Henrico for a number of reasons: excellent access to fiber, a strong pool of talent for both construction and operations staff and a great set of community partners,” said Meta spokesperson Ashley Settle. 

Since breaking ground, Meta has contributed $4 million in direct funding to Henrico area schools and nonprofits and has also created grants like the Community Action Grant program - one of which was awarded to the James River Association in February 2024 to help build the James A. Buzzard River Education Center for environmental education.

Potential impacts

Aileen Rivera, who is active in local environmental groups, described the data center’s presence as a liability.

A resident since 1993, she has seen firsthand the county’s transformation, including in her community of Varina.

“There are so many old economic and development models that don't apply to these times anymore,” she said. “I think that the [Henrico] EDA needs to take a hard look at county residents being the number one customer and have more conversations with the communities on what are their wants and needs.”

Henrico’s East End has largely escaped substantial development over the years, something residents have fought to protect.

“The rest of Henrico has changed a lot,” Rivera said. “All this construction and development we see on the West End and Northside - it’s sad. There needs to be more use of smart growth principles.”

A recent report by JLARC, commissioned by the General Assembly, found that while data centers generally bring high-paying jobs, increase county revenue and provide improved technology, there are worries about long-term sustainability. 

Water: The study found that a data center uses about the same amount of water as an average large office building, 6.7 million gallons per year, mostly to keep its facilities cool. The rise of artificial intelligence has produced additional demand for computing power, which comes with additional demands.

Noise: Data centers often release a low-frequency noise.

“Some nearby residents report that the constant noise generated by some data centers affects their well-being,” the JLARC report said, noting that 38% of Henrico’s data center sites are within 200 feet of residential zoning.

Energy: The study found that left unconstrained, Virginia’s energy needs will likely double over the next decade, in large part due to data center demand. This expansion wouldn’t only result in a larger environmental footprint but could result in indirect costs being passed on to residents.

What’s next

With the Henrico market established, the county adjusted its tax rate on data center properties this year.

In 2017, the Henrico Board of Supervisors reduced the tax from $3.50 to 40 cents per $100 of assessed value, the lowest in the state at the time.

This year, the board raised that to $2.60 per $100 of assessed value. Henrico plans to use revenue from the facilities to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund. 

Growth continues at a strong pace.

In May 2024, Henrico approved a rezoning request by Hourigan to transform 622 acres, which includes portions of two Civil War battlefields, into data center facilities. 

In September, a QTS-affiliated LLC also bought about 98 acres from LL Flooring.  

Iron Mountain, a Boston-based company, bought 66 acres for $8 million in November with plans to build four data center buildings. Earlier this year, DC Blox bought the former 30-acre Azalea Flea Market with intentions of turning about five acres into a data center. 

Despite the heavy push, some residents, like Rivera, remain skeptical over these facilities gobbling up portions of Henrico's landscape.

“I hope our elected officials take time to really understand data centers and consider their actions or inactions as the legacy they place on our younger generations economically and ecologically,” she said.

This article has been updated with a map showing a current construction of undersea cables, and reflecting that three such cables meet at the Virginia Beach access point.