GeorgiaEconomics

Georgia data centers

Atlanta is now a top-five U.S. data center market by operating capacity, behind only Northern Virginia, Dallas, Phoenix, and Chicago. From Microsoft's Lithia Springs campus to Meta's Newton County build, here is what is operating, what is in the pipeline, and what it means for jobs, GDP, the power grid, and the tax base.
Latest data: —

Power, land, fiber — Georgia has all three.

We track — data-center facilities across Georgia: — operating today and — in active construction or announced pipeline. Combined operating capacity exceeds —, with another — committed. Metro Atlanta dominates — but Douglas, Bartow, and Wilkes counties hold the largest concentration of new build.

—Operating capacity (utility MW)
—Pipeline capacity (MW)
—NAICS 518210 jobs
—U.S. rank, operating MW
Operating capacity
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Utility MW, sum of operating sites
Pipeline capacity
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Under construction + announced
NAICS 518210 jobs
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Avg weekly wage
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vs all-private
Information GDP
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Establishments
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NAICS 518210, GA

NAICS 518210 Employment in Georgia

Annual average jobs in Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services in Georgia. The series includes pure cloud/SaaS firms as well as physical data centers, so the totals overstate "data-center jobs" in the narrow sense, but the growth trajectory closely tracks the buildout of physical capacity.

Source: BLS Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages (QCEW), annual averages, NAICS 518210, Georgia.

Wages vs All-Private

Average weekly wage for NAICS 518210 vs all-private Georgia, USD per week. Data-center sector wages run roughly 2× the all-private average, reflecting concentrations of engineers and technicians.

Source: BLS QCEW avg weekly wage, NAICS 518210 vs NAICS 10 (all-private), Georgia.

Information-Sector GDP

Information-sector industry GDP for Georgia, billions of USD per year. Information (NAICS 51) is broader than data centers — it also includes telecom, publishing, and software — so this chart shows the upper bound; the data-center share is a growing portion.

Source: BEA Regional Economic Accounts, SAGDP2N — Information sector, Georgia.
⚠ NAICS 51 includes telecom, publishing, software — not data centers alone. The directional growth tracks the buildout, but the absolute number overstates the data-center contribution.

Information-Sector GDP by State

Information-sector GDP by state, latest year, billions of USD. California, New York, Washington, and Texas dominate; Georgia ranks in the top dozen — driven in part by Atlanta's data-center cluster.

Source: BEA Regional Economic Accounts, SAGDP2N — Information sector, state-level industry GDP (value-added).

Where the Data Centers Are

Every tracked facility, mapped. Pin color shows status; pin size scales with utility-power capacity. Use the toggles to filter by status, or click any pin for facility details. Most sites cluster in Douglas County's Lithia Springs corridor, central Fulton, and the Bartow/Walton/Newton band along the I-20/I-75 exurbs.

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Facility locations from our internal facility database. Map tiles © CARTO, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Coverage skews toward commercially marketed sites; smaller enterprise rooms are likely undercounted.

Capacity by County

Operating and pipeline capacity by county, in megawatts. Douglas County carries the largest operating fleet; Bartow and Walton lead the active pipeline.

Source: Georgia Economics internal facility database, aggregated from the facility list above.

County Rankings

Full county-level breakdown of facility counts, operating capacity, and pipeline capacity. Sort: largest to smallest by total facility count.

County Existing UC Announced Total Operating MW Pipeline MW Operating sq ft

Georgia Power Load Forecast

Historical Georgia Power total system load (GWh) plus the utility's projected forecast through 2035, drawn from its 2023 Integrated Resource Plan and 2025 IRP update. The post-2025 inflection reflects data-center load growth — Georgia Power's filings explicitly attribute the largest single share of the increase to data centers.

The grey bars below show data centers' share of total Georgia Power load — projected to roughly triple from ~7% in 2024 to ~23% by 2035 under the IRP base case.

Source: Georgia Power 2023 Integrated Resource Plan and 2025 update (PSC dockets, Georgia Power filings).

Water Use

Estimated cooling-water consumption across Georgia data centers. Where facilities hold GA EPD water-withdrawal permits, the measured figure is shown directly. For facilities without disclosed permits, a modeled estimate is derived from operating MW at industry-standard cooling efficiency. The total is an estimate, not a measurement.

— Measured (MGD)
From GA EPD water-withdrawal permits associated with data centers.
— Modeled (MGD)
Operating MW not associated with permits, at 50% utilization × 0.5 gal/kWh.
— Total estimate (MGD)
Million gallons per day. For context, Atlanta uses ~70 MGD of treated water for residential use.

Facility Spotlight

The largest operating and under-construction facilities in Georgia by utility capacity. Status colors: operating, under construction, announced, deferred.

Source: Georgia Economics internal facility database.

Facility List

Tracked facilities, filterable and sortable. Click any column header to sort. Use the filters to narrow by county, status, or facility type. The list is not exhaustive — smaller enterprise rooms (banks, hospitals, universities) are typically not included.

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Address Operator County Status Type RBA (sf) ▼ Utility kW Built

Tax Exemption & Policy

Georgia exempts qualifying data center investments from sales tax on equipment and electricity. The program was enacted in 2018 (HB 696) and is authorized through 2028. A 2024 effort to pause the program (HB 1192) was vetoed; legislative debate has continued into the 2025–26 session over how grid buildout costs should be allocated to large-load customers.

Policy timeline

    Estimated forgone state revenue

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    From the Georgia Department of Revenue's annual tax expenditure report. Reflects the gross value of sales-tax exemptions claimed by qualifying data-center facilities during the fiscal year. Does not net out incremental state revenue from facility operations, jobs, and supplier activity.

    Active bills, 2025–26 session

    BillTitle / summaryStatus
    Sources: GA DOR Tax Expenditure Report; legis.ga.gov; AJC and Georgia Recorder bill tracking (via Tavily).

    Operating MW — Georgia vs Peer Markets

    Operating data-center capacity (MW) across the leading U.S. markets. Methodology varies across the brokerage sources (CBRE, JLL, Cushman & Wakefield) that produce these figures, so this is directional — but the ranking has been stable for several years.

    Source: Peer-state figures compiled from public CBRE/JLL/Cushman & Wakefield North American Data Center reports; Georgia values are derived from our internal facility database.