U.S. Data Center Density

Where American compute concentrates

Half of mapped U.S. data centers fall within grid cells covering about 0.31% of U.S. land area.

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Data: Public data center registries
Coverage: 3,176 mapped facilities, lower 48
Method: 20 km equal-area binning, Albers conic
Implementation: Node.js · d3-geo · Canvas 2D

Screenshot of U.S. Data Center Density — U.S. Data Center Density · screenshot

0.31%

of U.S. land area holds half of mapped facilities

3,176

facilities mapped

20 km

equal-area cell size

Question

Plotted as dots, a few thousand data centers just look like scatter. I wanted to see how concentrated they actually are, which needs a map where height and area mean the same thing everywhere.

Function

Bins mapped facilities into 20-kilometre equal-area cells across the lower 48 and draws them as a relief, so cell height is comparable anywhere on the map rather than distorted by the projection. Half of the mapped facilities fall inside roughly 60 cells, about 0.31% of U.S. land area. Clustering groups nearby cells into recognizable markets you can select and zoom to.

Limitation

An empty cell means no public record, not the absence of a data center. Some coordinates are geocoded to city centroids rather than to buildings, so a dense cell can overstate how tightly clustered the sites really are. Capacity is deliberately left out, since announced megawatts and operating megawatts are not comparable quantities.