Methodology

Who runs the Census, and how it is funded: About the Census.

What we track

Large data center projects in the United States, from the first public sign of a proposal through operation, including projects that are paused, cancelled or denied. We start with the projects drawing the most public attention and add more every week.

Sources, in order of trust

1. Government records: county and city agendas and minutes, zoning filings, state permits and agency pages, utility commission dockets, court records.
2. Utility and grid documents: interconnection and large-load filings.
3. Company statements: developer and tenant releases and filings, recorded as what the company says.
4. News reporting: local and trade outlets, used for events and confirmed against the above where possible.

Every fact and every timeline entry links to the source it came from. If we can’t find a published source for a value, we leave it out. We don’t estimate.

Our words and theirs

Everything on the site is written in our own words. When we use a source’s exact wording, it appears in quotation marks or in a “Source excerpt” box, with the publisher named and linked. Excerpts are kept short and are there only to show where a specific fact comes from; for the full story, follow the link to the original. Before each update, an automated check compares our text with the stored source excerpts and flags any passage that repeats a source’s wording outside quotation marks.

Community concerns

The community concerns tracker lists concerns that people have raised about tracked projects, using a fixed set of topics (noise, water, electricity rates, grid reliability, tax incentives, land use and zoning, farmland, traffic and construction, air emissions and generators, transparency and NDAs, jobs and economic effects, property values, environment and wildlife, other). The rules:

• Public, attributable sources only. A concern is published only when a source anyone can open documents it: the public-comment section of official minutes or transcripts, written public comments in an official docket, a petition with a public page, an official statement by an elected official or agency, a filed lawsuit, or reputable news reporting. Each concern links its source and carries its date.
• Social media is a tip, never a source. Posts in Facebook groups, on Threads, Instagram, Nextdoor, X, Reddit and similar places are never cited, quoted, linked or stored in this repository or on the site. A tip can point us to a hearing or a document; the document is what we cite. The build rejects a concern whose source is on a social-media domain.
• No private individuals. We do not name, quote or identify residents or other private people. Public officials, organizations, companies, agencies and plaintiffs in filed cases are named only as the cited source reports them, and a group is named only if a cited source names it.
• Raised, not validated. A concern is described as raised by the people or body the source names. We do not say whether it is right. Where a developer, utility or official has publicly responded, the response and its source appear next to the concern.
• Neutral, our own words. Each concern is one neutral sentence, with no adjectives about the level of feeling and no tally of how angry anyone was. Counts on the tracker count documented concerns, not people or opinion, and depend on which projects and sources have been reviewed.

If you want something reviewed, changed or removed, use the corrections page; a person named in a source can ask for a review the same way.

Statuses

Rumored

Land deals or reports of interest, but no formal application on file.

Proposed

A formal application, rezoning request or public announcement of a specific site.

Approved

Key local approvals granted; construction not yet under way.

Under construction

Site work or building construction has begun.

Operating

At least part of the campus is running.

Paused

On hold, for example by a moratorium, lawsuit or developer decision.

Cancelled

Withdrawn by the developer or ended by a court.

Denied

Rejected by the deciding body.

Projects we can document, but not yet to the standard of a full record, are listed separately on the watchlist, using the same statuses. They are not included in the Census counts.

Units and conflicting figures

Capacity is recorded in megawatts (MW) as published. “Planned capacity” is the campus or utility figure at full build-out. “IT load” is the computing load, where published separately. Sources often disagree; when they do, we show each figure with its source rather than pick one. Headline totals use each project’s first recorded planned-capacity figure.

Locations

Map pins use the published site where available. Otherwise they sit at the town or county center, and the project page says so.

How do we check the Census against other datasets?

We compare our records with other public data center datasets and list the differences on the cross-check page. The same announcement dates feed Strata, which charts the capacity announced each month.

How records are kept current

Records are researched with AI assistance and checked against their sources. Power, water, incentive, zoning and lawsuit details carry a short verbatim excerpt from the source (“Source excerpt” on each project page), and each was independently re-checked against the source page before publication; anything that couldn’t be confirmed word-for-word was left out. Each record shows the date it was last verified, and the changelog lists every dated event. Automated checks block publication of any record with a missing source, invalid status or malformed date.

Corrections

Spot an error or a missing project? Email corrections@datacentercensus.com with a link to a public source. We correct errors promptly; the corrections policy explains how.