Understanding the history of data centers in Virginia provides insight into how the General Assembly may manage the industry going forward, says McGuireWoods Consulting senior vice president Preston Bryant in an article published in the University of Richmond School of Law’s Public Interest Law Review. Bryant provides a history of the data center industry’s growth in Virginia and analyzes the industry’s impacts on the commonwealth’s economy, energy demand, natural resources and local land use.
Bryant’s article, “The General Assembly’s Consideration of the Data Center Industry’s Growth in Virginia,” looks back to the 1960s and ’70s when the nation’s burgeoning defense industry sector in Northern Virginia played an important role developing new “electronic communication.” Over the following decades, the local public and private sectors constructed fiber infrastructure and developed new e-sales and social media platforms, creating the demand for today’s Virginia data center industry, which had economic and other impacts.
Bryant charts the industry’s explosive Northern Virginia growth over the past decade and reviews what suburban and exurban localities did over the past year to change data center zoning ordinances. He reviews the Virginia General Assembly’s consideration in 2023 and 2024 of data center-related legislation, including bills to address data center growth and impacts on energy, the environment and land use, with a look toward what future sessions may bring.
Learn more about the data center industry capabilities of McGuireWoods and McGuireWoods Consulting.
