US data centers are overwhelmingly urban, study finds

A new study in Nature Cities shows that 97.5% of US data centers are in urban areas, drawn by existing electricity infrastructure and former coal plant sites, challenging the rural narrative.

This article was drafted with AI assistance from multiple sources and was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication.

A new study challenges the common perception that data centers are remote rural facilities, finding that the vast majority are actually located in or near American cities. The research, published in the journal Nature Cities, analyzed the locations of 4,283 data centers across the contiguous United States and found that 97.5% sit within metropolitan or micropolitan statistical areas. Of the remaining 2.5% located outside city limits, the average distance to the nearest urban edge is just 8.5 miles (14 kilometers).

The study, led by Maurizio Porfiri, a professor at NYU Tandon and director of the Center for Urban Science + Progress and the NYU Urban Institute, identified five metro areas that together account for nearly a third of all US data centers: Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, Chicago, Dallas–Fort Worth, New York–Newark–Jersey City, and Phoenix. The Washington region alone hosts 610 facilities.

"There is a prevailing narrative of these data centers being somewhere in the middle of nowhere, in rural areas, being a positive force for employment, and being the future of rural communities. We dramatically challenged this view," Porfiri said.

The analysis found that the single strongest predictor of data center location is electricity capacity—how much power local generators can produce. Closed coal plants near cities attract new data center builds, as developers tap into existing power lines and grid connections or redevelop sites. Facilities under development are twice as likely to be located in cities that overlap with Energy Communities, a 2022 federal policy designation. Data centers also cluster where IT workers and high-speed internet are concentrated, while water shortages have less impact on placement.

The environmental impact varies sharply by region. A typical data center in Montana or North Dakota produces more than 350,000 tons of CO2 annually, whereas comparable facilities in Vermont, New Hampshire, or Arkansas emit less than 3,000 tons.

"As this industry rapidly grows, the limited publicly available data on its footprint creates a real challenge. That makes it more difficult for planners, for local residents, and for anyone trying to make informed decisions about their community's future," said co-author Ofek Lauber Bonomo. Another co-author, Anton Rozhkov, added: "The patterns we found were consistent and clear. Where the infrastructure already exists, the data centers follow. The question now is whether that is the future we want to build."

The research was supported by the NYU Abu Dhabi Center for Interacting Urban Networks, funded by the Abu Dhabi government through the NYUAD Research Institute. Porfiri and co-author Camilla Ancona were named to the 2026 cohort of Microsoft Research Fellows.

The findings come amid projections of soaring electricity demand from data centers. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that data centers could consume up to 9% of US electricity generation annually by 2030, up from 4% in 2023. BloombergNEF projects that data centers will draw 194 gigawatts by 2035—roughly the output of 200 nuclear reactors—and their share of US power use will rise from 5.9% today to about 12% in 2030 and about one-fifth by 2035. "One unit of energy out of five" generated in the US could go to data centers by 2035, said BloombergNEF analyst Lloyd Arnold.

The strain on the grid is already evident. PJM Interconnection, which serves about 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C., said in July that demand for electricity continues to grow faster than supply. The grid operator's independent market monitor, Monitoring Analytics, attributed about $6.3 billion of $16.4 billion in capacity charges to data-center-driven demand.

Policymakers are responding. Texas law SB6, passed last year, regulates large loads at a threshold of 75 megawatts and requires large load customers to disclose whether they are pursuing substantially similar interconnection requests elsewhere. In New York, Governor Hochul issued an executive order temporarily banning data centers beyond a 50-megawatt threshold, though it exempts manufacturing, research, and education.

Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard Law School's Electricity Law Initiative, noted that "industry rules that determine how new infrastructure costs are shared by ratepayers do not force data centers to pay for new power lines and power plants that are being built for them." He added that regulators have the ability and the responsibility to change how utilities allocate those costs.

Virginia and Texas are likely to remain above the national average for data center power use, according to Newsweek.