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The high-profile Stratos data center in Box Elder County, Utah, highlights the rising peril for AI developers. Fierce opposition and litigation have hindered the start of the project. The facility would use more electricity than the entire state if fully built out to 9 gigawatts of power and would emit enough heat to hike local temperatures a few degrees. Backers say the project will initially use 1.5 gigawatts of power and have launched a campaign to combat attacks they see as unfair or inaccurate.
But other massive data centers have fewer roadblocks and are on pace for completion, according to Epoch AI, a market research firm that tracks construction using satellite imagery, permits and public documents.
To rank the top projects , Epoch AI has converted the estimated capacity of each data center to the equivalent number of Nvidia’s H100 graphics processing units, a standard industry metric.
Largest Data Centers Today (ranked by computing power)
SpaceX Colossus 2
1.1 million H100e
Memphis, Tennessee
Anthropic-Amazon New Carlisle
818,000 H100e
New Carlisle, Indiana
Microsoft Fairwater Atlanta
769,000 H100e
Fayetteville, Georgia
Google Pryor (North)
637,000 H100e
Pryor, Oklahoma
DayOne Nusajaya
584,000 H100e
Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
Source : Epoch AI (computing capacity measured by H100-equivalents)
OpenAI is scheduled to have two of the biggest data centers in 2030, with Stargate New Mexico in Santa Teresa and Stargate Shackelford in Abilene, Texas. Each will cost about $60 billion, with major financial backing from SoftBank and Oracle and will use over 1 gigawatt of power for millions of AI chips. The Stargate project is a $500 billion effort by OpenAI to “unlock the next generation of AI breakthroughs.”
The next-biggest facilities in 2030 will be Microsoft Fairwater in Wisconsin, Meta Hyperion in Louisiana and QTS Cedar Rapids in Iowa. These projects will be far bigger than today’s top data center, SpaceX’s Colossus 2 in Tennessee. Keep an eye on the rocket company’s aggressive plans for AI data centers, including efforts in 2027 and beyond that could send it climbing up the 2030 rankings.
Largest Data Centers in 2030 (ranked by computing power)
OpenAI Stargate New Mexico
5.1 million H100e
Santa Teresa, New Mexico
OpenAI Stargate Shackelford
4.6 million H100e
Abilene, Texas
Microsoft Fairwater Wisconsin
4.5 million H100e
Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin
Meta Hyperion
4.1 million H100e
Holly Ridge, Louisiana
QTS Cedar Rapids
3.7 million H100e
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Source : Epoch AI (computing capacity measured by H100-equivalents)
Currently, Virginia is home to the most data centers, followed by Texas. Texas is expected to overtake Virginia in coming years, having more projects in the pipeline. Other states with lots of planned construction include Ohio, Arizona, Iowa and Nevada.
However, future projects come with some uncertainty and assume demand for AI computing keeps soaring.
This forecast first appeared in The Kiplinger Letter, which has been running since 1923 and is a collection of concise weekly forecasts on business and economic trends, as well as what to expect from Washington, to help you understand what’s coming up to make the most of your investments and your money. Subscribe to The Kiplinger Letter.
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