When was the first data center built?

Data center history at a glance

The 1940s: rooms built for the first computers

Penn Engineering calls ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, the first general-purpose electronic computer; it was announced on February 14, 1946[1]. It was built at Penn under a contract with the military’s Ballistic Research Laboratory and, once finished, shipped to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland[1]. Everything about it anticipated the problems data centers still manage. It needed its own room, 30 by 50 feet, and weighed 30 tons[1]. It ran on 18,000 vacuum tubes, more than 20 times the number aboard a wartime B-29 bomber[1]. And it needed its own power supply: dedicated lines carrying 150 kilowatts[1].

For scale, a hyperscale data center today is rated above 100 megawatts[3], more than 650 times ENIAC’s draw.

The 1950s and 1960s: computer rooms go commercial

Computers soon left the lab. On March 30, 1951, the U.S. Census Bureau received the first UNIVAC I, which the Computer History Museum calls “the first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention”[8]. By the 1960s manufacturers were designing for every kind of customer: IBM launched its System/360 on April 7, 1964, a family of machines built on one software-compatible architecture and aimed at all possible types of users[9]. Computers now belonged to the organizations that used them, the pattern CRS today calls an enterprise data center: one a company builds, owns and runs for its own IT[3].

The 1990s: the internet needs a home

The data center as a business, a building that exists to house other organizations’ equipment, grew out of the commercial internet. In 1992, engineers from Metropolitan Fiber Systems and UUNet connected their fiber networks in a Vienna, Virginia, parking garage; the result, MAE East, was the first commercial internet exchange point, Loudoun County says[5]. Virginia’s JLARC says that exchange drew major telecommunications firms and early internet companies to the region[13]. America Online opened its headquarters in Ashburn in 1996, and UUNet followed in 1998[5]. Northern Virginia is now the largest data center market in the world, with 13% of reported operating capacity worldwide[4]. Today the model is called colocation: a third party owns the building and rents space, equipment or services to others[3].

2006 to 2011: the cloud and the company-built campus

Two things happened in 2006 that shaped the modern industry. On March 14, Amazon Web Services announced Amazon S3, which it described as storage for the internet[6]; letting many users reach storage and computing remotely is what CRS now calls the cloud[3]. And Google began building and operating its own data centers, starting in The Dalles, Oregon[7].

Energy use was already drawing Washington’s attention. In August 2007, EPA told Congress that the nation’s servers and data centers used about 61 billion kilowatt-hours in 2006, 1.5% of U.S. electricity, at a cost of about $4.5 billion[10], more than double their use in 2000[10]. The industry’s average power usage effectiveness, or PUE, then stood at 2.5; it fell to 1.65 by 2014 as operators made the most practical efficiency changes first[14].

In April 2011 Facebook launched the Open Compute Project to share the designs of its first dedicated data center, in Prineville, Oregon[11], which it said reached an initial PUE of 1.07, against 1.5 at its existing facilities[11]. What is PUE? explains the measure.

The mid-2010s: efficiency holds the line

For a few years, efficiency kept pace with demand. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reports that U.S. data center energy use stayed about flat at 60 terawatt-hours a year from 2014 to 2016[2], thanks to better cooling and power management, busier servers, more efficient computing and lower idle power[2].

Since 2017: the AI era

That plateau ended in 2017, when GPU-accelerated servers for artificial intelligence became a large enough share of the server stock to push total U.S. data center electricity use up again[2]. The growth of accelerated servers more than doubled data center energy demand between 2017 and 2023[2], to 176 terawatt-hours, or 4.4% of U.S. electricity[2]. OpenAI introduced ChatGPT on November 30, 2022[12], and by the end of 2024 one estimate cited by CRS put North American data center capacity under construction at a record 6,350 megawatts[3].

The buildings have changed scale with it. The IEA says a typical AI-focused data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 households, and the largest under construction in 2025 will use 20 times as much[15]. Synergy Research Group counted 1,297 large data centers run by hyperscale providers worldwide in the third quarter of 2025, nearly three times as many as in early 2018[16]. What is an AI data center? picks up the story from here.

Common questions

When was the first data center built?

It depends on the definition, but the earliest facilities that fit it were rooms built for the first electronic computers in the 1940s. ENIAC, announced in February 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania, filled a 30-by-50-foot room and drew 150 kilowatts over its own power lines.

What was the first data center?

There is no official first. ENIAC’s room at Penn, from 1946, is a well-documented early example of a facility built to house and run a large computer. UNIVAC I, which the Computer History Museum says was the first commercial computer to draw wide public attention, went to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951.

When did data centers become common?

With the commercial internet in the 1990s. Northern Virginia’s cluster traces its start to the MAE East internet exchange of 1992, and the cloud era began in 2006, when Amazon launched its S3 storage service and Google began building its own data centers.

How much electricity did early data centers use?

ENIAC used 150 kilowatts. In 2006, U.S. servers and data centers used about 61 billion kilowatt-hours, 1.5% of the nation’s electricity, according to EPA; by 2023 data centers used 176 terawatt-hours, or 4.4%.

What is the history of data centers?

Computer rooms from the 1940s through the 1960s, internet exchanges and shared buildings in the 1990s, company-built cloud campuses from 2006, and since 2017 a construction boom driven by AI servers. The timeline on this page gives the dates and sources.

Sources

1. ENIAC
   Penn Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
   5 source excerpts

   “Originally announced on February 14, 1946, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), was the first general-purpose electronic computer.”

   “ENIAC also had its own dedicated power lines and used 150 kilowatts of electricity.”

   “When fully operational, ENIAC occupied a room 30 by 50 feet in size and weighed 30 tons.”

   “After construction, the ENIAC was shipped to the military's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Aberdeen, Maryland.”

   “The 18,000 vacuum tubes required were more than 20 times as many as the total employed by all various systems aboard a wartime B-29 bomber.”

2. 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report
   Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · 2024-12-20
   5 source excerpts

   “U.S. data center energy use has continued to grow at an increasing rate, reaching 176 TWh by 2023, representing 4.4% of total U.S. electricity consumption.”

   “U.S. data center annual energy use remained stable between 2014–2016 at about 60 TWh”

   “In 2017, the overall server installed base started growing and Graphic Processing Unit (GPU)-accelerated servers for artificial intelligence (AI) became a significant enough portion of the data center server stock that total data center electricity use began to increase again”

   “The efficiency strategies that allowed the industry to avoid increased energy needs during this period included improved cooling and power management, increased server utilization rates, increased computational efficiencies, and reduced server idle power.”

   “Most notably, the rapid growth in accelerated servers has caused current total data center energy demand to more than double between 2017 and 2023, and continued growth in the use of accelerated servers for AI services could cause further substantial increases by the end of this decade.”

3. Data Centers and Their Energy Consumption: Frequently Asked Questions (CRS R48646)
   Congressional Research Service (text via EveryCRSReport.com) · 2026-05-12
   6 source excerpts

   “In its simplest form, a data center is a physical facility that houses and runs large computer systems.”

   “Multiple industry reports indicate that data processing demands of AI and related remote computing services have spurred new construction and upgrades of data centers. ... One report estimated that the computing capacity (measured by the amount of electrical power consumed by IT equipment) of data centers under construction in North America at the end of 2024 reached a record-high 6,350 MW.”

   “To be considered a hyperscale data center, a facility should contain at least 5,000 computer servers and a large scale of network equipment and occupy at least 10,000 square feet of physical space, with an electric power rating, sometimes referred to as power draw, exceeding 100 megawatts (MW).”

   “For example, a large company may choose to build, own, and operate an on-premises data center (also known as an "enterprise data center") to house and manage its own IT infrastructure.”

   “Other organizations, especially those lacking the space, staff, or IT resources, often choose to rent a space, equipment, or services within a colocation data center (also known as a "managed data center") owned and operated by a third-party company.”

   “Some online service providers operate geographically distributed and interconnected data centers and allow multiple users to remotely access computing resources such as data processing chips, software, data storage, networks, and applications hosted by these data centers, which are called "cloud data centers."”

4. Data Centers in Virginia (Report 598, Summary)
   Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, Commonwealth of Virginia · 2024
   Source excerpt

   “Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world, constituting 13 percent of all reported data center operational capacity globally and 25 percent of capacity in the Americas.”

5. Data Centers: The Loudoun Story
   Loudoun County, Virginia · 2026
   2 source excerpts

   “Loudoun's data center story began in 1992, when engineers from Metropolitan Fiber Systems and UUNet hooked up local fiber networks in a parking garage in Vienna, Virginia, creating the first commercial Internet Exchange Point (IXP). The IXP was known as the Metropolitan Area Exchange – East, or MAE East, and was in close proximity to Loudoun County.”

   “In 1996, America Online (AOL) opened its global headquarters in Ashburn ... UUNet, another of the world's first Internet Service Providers, subsequently opened its headquarters in Ashburn in 1998”

6. Announcing Amazon S3 - Simple Storage Service
   Amazon Web Services · 2006-03-14
   Source excerpt

   “Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet.”

7. The Dalles, Oregon – Google Data Center Location
   Google · 2026
   Source excerpt

   “In 2006, we began a path of building and operating our own data centers — and it all began here in The Dalles, Oregon.”

8. This Day in History: March 30
   Computer History Museum
   Source excerpt

   “The US Census Bureau receives the first UNIVAC I computer, the first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention.”

9. The IBM System/360
   IBM
   Source excerpt

   “Launched on April 7, 1964, the System/360 was so named because it was meant to address all possible types of users with one unified software-compatible architecture.”

10. Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency, Public Law 109-431 (Executive Summary)
    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ENERGY STAR Program · 2007-08-02
    2 source excerpts

    “It is estimated that this sector consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2006 (1.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption) for a total electricity cost of about $4.5 billion.”

    “The energy use of the nation's servers and data centers in 2006 is estimated to be more than double the electricity that was consumed for this purpose in 2000.”

11. Facebook Launches Open Compute Project
    Meta (Facebook Newsroom) · 2011-04-07
    2 source excerpts

    “Facebook today launched the Open Compute Project, an initiative to share the custom-engineered technology in its first dedicated data center in Prineville, Oregon.”

    “This technology enabled the data center to achieve an initial power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.07, compared with 1.5 for our existing facilities”

12. Introducing ChatGPT
    OpenAI · 2022-11-30
    Source excerpt

    “We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way.”

13. Data Centers in Virginia
    Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), Virginia General Assembly · 2024-12
    Source excerpt

    “The establishment of an internet exchange point in the 1990s further attracted major telecommunications and early internet companies to the region.”

14. Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey 2025
    Uptime Institute · 2025-07
    Source excerpt

    “The industry's average dropped quickly — from 2.5 in 2007 to 1.65 in 2014 — as operators first deployed the most practical and economical changes.”

15. Executive summary – Energy and AI
    International Energy Agency · 2025-04-10
    Source excerpt

    “A typical AI-focused data centre consumes as much electricity as 100 000 households, but the largest ones under construction today will consume 20 times as much.”

16. Hyperscale Spending Spree is Driving Dramatic Growth in Data Center Capacity
    Synergy Research Group · 2025-12-19
    Source excerpt

    “New Q3 data from Synergy Research Group shows that the number of large data centers operated by hyperscale providers has climbed to 1,297 worldwide, nearly tripling since early 2018. ... The US now accounts for 55% of worldwide hyperscale operational capacity, up from 52% three years ago”

Each source was opened and checked against the excerpt shown. Company statements are identified as such. Figures are as published; where sources differ, each is shown.