The AI boom is redrawing America’s data center map.
Texas and the Midwest are emerging as the key hubs for the largest and most powerful data centers for cloud and AI computing, shifting the industry’s nexus away from Northern Virginia, a new report shows.
The two regions accounted for one-third of hyperscale data center capacity at the end of 2025, according to Synergy, an IT market research firm.
The two regions will account for 53% of new hyperscale data center capacity coming online in the next few years.
Northern Virginia has long served as Big Tech’s primary data center hub. Power availability is driving the shift inland, the report said. The companies building the largest and most powerful facilities are seeking land with readily available electricity.
The sprawling data center buildout in the US is straining the nation’s aging power grid and fueling concerns over rising electricity costs.
Texas leads the country in new data center development by a wide margin, though the Midwest is quickly growing in importance, the report said.
Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Missouri are fueling Midwestern growth.
Wisconsin has attracted major data center projects from Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft. Michigan houses an Oracle-backed Stargate data center. Amazon and Google are building massive data center campuses in Northern Indiana.
Ohio is already one of the biggest data center markets in the country. Data centers in the state have received generous tax incentives, including 30-year property tax abatements in some cases.
One factor in Texas’s data center boom is the BYOP (bring your own power) phenomenon. A number of data centers in the state, including the Stargate campus in Abilene, are avoiding the grid altogether and building their own on-site power plants, fueled mostly with natural gas.
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