A map tracking the proliferation of data centers across the United States reveals several enormous campuses under construction with listed capacities exceeding 3 gigawatts.
The live map, produced by Data Center Index, places the developments in Ohio, Texas, Louisiana and Utah, led by an 8-gigawatt project in Ohio.
Projects of this scale "are indeed massive compared even to the largest data center campuses that existed just a few years ago prior to AI," Eric Masanet, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Newsweek.
"Before AI, data center sites greater than 100 megawatts were considered very large by industry standards, and 100 megawatts is only 1/10 of a gigawatt," Masanet said.
Where the Largest Data Centers Are Being Built
The largest listed on the site is SoftBank’s SB Energy’s 8GW PORTS-Pike Technology Campus, which Data Center Index said is being developed at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, Ohio. The site says ground was broken on the project in March and that completion is expected in 2028.
Also listed as under construction is the Nexus Data Centers campus in Hubbard, Texas. Data Center Index estimated this project’s capacity at 7.7 gigawatts. Completion of this project is expected by October 2027, according to Data Center Index.
Next on the list is Meta’s Hyperion AI infrastructure project in Richland Parish, Louisiana, which Data Center Index identifies as a $50 billion development with a capacity of 5 gigawatts. The site says the 2,250-acre campus is being developed as a "Titan Cluster" for training next-generation large language models. Data Center Index says completion is expected in 2028.
The final project listed on Data Center Index as under construction and with a capacity greater than 3 gigawatts is Creekstone Energy’s Delta Gigasite southeast of Delta, Utah. It says completion is expected in 2027.
A Creekstone Energy spokesperson told Newsweek the Delta Gigasite’s current generation was around 3 gigawatts, and that the campus is designed to scale toward 10 gigawatts over time.
Newsweek contacted the listed operators of all four projects for comment and confirmation of site details, via email, and awaits their responses.
Public Concern Over Data Centers Is Rising
The rapid development of data centers across the country has become a political flashpoint ahead of November’s midterm elections, with residents and lawmakers voicing concerns over the facilities' potential electricity and water consumption, and environmental impacts.
A Pew Research Center survey last month also found that Americans’ views toward the projects’ potential environmental and economic effects have turned more negative since the start of the year. President Donald Trump has backed the developments, however. He said that data centers are a driver of prosperity and important in maintaining a strategic edge over China.
Creekstone Energy’s CEO Ray Conley told Newsweek that the Delta Gigasite’s data centers were designed to operate with minimal water use. He said the company has also developed a patent-pending technology that is intended to capture water vapor from on-site natural gas power generation and convert it into usable water.
The CEO said the company’s engineering model projects that the technology could produce more than 4,000 acre-feet of water annually, which would make the site a net water producer. Conley added that this is a modeled estimate rather than commercial-scale data and said the University of Utah’s Energy & Geoscience Institute is independently testing the model.
"On power, all of our generation is behind the meter, built on site. That means no impact on utility rates for Utah families or businesses," Conley said. The natural gas plant would operate under a Utah Division of Air Quality permit with enforceable emissions limits, he added.
Masanet said that, although the 3 gigawatt-plus projects are "huge," they are not representative of most existing data centers or many of those likely to be built in the future.
"A 3 GW campus is designed to host centralized AI computing in a really big way. The vast majority of other data centers out there, which serve conventional internet tasks, have been and will likely remain much smaller, even if some of them end up hosting some AI computing racks.
"In other words, data centers come in all sizes that are built for many different purposes; large centralized AI computing campuses are only one type of many, albeit a highly visible and disruptive type," Masanet said.
Masanet added that concerns about new AI campuses "are absolutely warranted." A 3 gigawatt campus would require around half of Los Angeles’ recorded peak power capacity, he said, representing a major new load for any grid.
Jonathan Koomey, an independent researcher who has been studying data center electricity use for more than a quarter-century, told Newsweek that the industry generally uses megawatt or gigawatt figures to describe a data center’s maximum IT load once it is fully built out with the equipment assumed in its design. The facility’s total power requirements can be higher after energy used for cooling, fans, pumps and power-distribution losses is included.
"It can take months or years to fill up the facility, but it may never be filled up," Koomey said. He added that a data center’s actual IT load may also remain below its designed maximum if it uses different equipment than originally anticipated.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and James Debens