Loudoun County, Virginia

Settle in among the largest concentration of data centers on Earth.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 2,200 MW est.; Dominion Energy reported a 2022 data center peak of 2,767 MW in its territory and said Loudoun County is over 80% of that demand. The figure shown is that 80% share.; Dominion Energy, 2023

Water: 15 million L/day est.; About 4 million gallons a day of average consumptive use by data centers in the Washington metro area in 2025, most of them in Loudoun County. Peak days reach about 15 million gallons.; Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, 2026

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh at the reported peak
Water: 0.0 liters of water

After less than a minute of listening, at the rates above. The power figure is an upper bound, not measured use. Based on estimates.

Operator: Many operators
Status: Operating

After a power failure in July 2026, neighbors of a data center campus in Sterling told the county about a constant hum at all hours, and then the diesel generators.

Captions

Loudoun County counted about 233 data center buildings, built or under construction, as of March 2026.
Together they cover roughly 56.5 million square feet.
In 2022, data centers in Dominion Energy's territory reached a peak demand of 2,767 megawatts.
Dominion says the industry here is concentrated in roughly 30 square miles.
On an average day, data centers account for 9% of Loudoun's drinking water use.
About 40% of the region's data centers are cooled by air alone.
Data center taxes paid for 39% of the county budget in fiscal 2026.

The scene

Drawn from Amazon Web Services Smith Switch Road campus (IAD50, IAD60, IAD71), Ashburn, Virginia. Building outlines, fuel tanks and fence from OpenStreetMap; heights, colors and the transformers in the substation are estimates, and the generators are not drawn because their places are not mapped.

Sources

Dominion Energy, Data Center Forecasting, presentation to PJM, June 2023 pjm.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, Data Centers and Water Use in the Potomac River Basin, March 2026 potomacriver.org accessed 25 Oct 2026
Loudoun County, Data Centers: The Loudoun Story loudoun.gov accessed 25 Oct 2026
Loudoun County, Data Centers: Water Considerations loudoun.gov accessed 25 Oct 2026
WJLA, Data center noise, fumes create flood of complaints in Loudoun County, July 2026 wjla.com accessed 25 Oct 2026

South Memphis, Tennessee

Breathe in slowly, in time with the turbines.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 150 MW est.; Power the supercomputer was expected to need at full capacity, as reported in September 2024.; NPR (via GPB), 2024

Water: 3.8 million L/day est.; Memphis Light, Gas and Water estimated about one million gallons a day for cooling.; NPR (via GPB), 2024

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh at full reported capacity
Water: 0.0 liters of water

After less than a minute of listening, at the rates above. The power figure is an upper bound, not measured use. Based on estimates.

Operator: xAI
Status: Operating

Boxtown, a neighborhood founded by formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, sits about a mile away across a floodplain and a forest.

Captions

Before it held servers, the building was an Electrolux appliance factory.
Elon Musk said the build took 122 days.
At full capacity, the supercomputer was expected to need 150 megawatts, about as much as 100,000 homes.
The local utility estimated cooling would take about a million gallons of water a day.
In 2024, at least 18 portable gas turbines ran on site before any air permit was issued.
In July 2025, the county health department permitted 15 turbines to stay.
Shelby County often issues code orange ozone alerts.

The scene

Drawn from xAI Colossus 1, former Electrolux plant, 3231 Paul R. Lowry Road, Memphis, Tennessee. Building outline and the 25 gas turbines are as mapped in OpenStreetMap, which may not match the count on site today; the height, roof color and substation transformers are estimates.

Sources

NPR (via GPB), How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk's xAI supercomputer, September 2024 gpb.org accessed 25 Oct 2026
Action News 5, Health dept. grants permit for xAI turbines, July 2025 actionnews5.com accessed 25 Oct 2026

Abilene, Texas

Let the West Texas wind carry your thoughts somewhere else.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 421 MW est.; Epoch AI's estimate of IT power in operation as of July 2026, from satellite imagery. Not confirmed by the companies.; Epoch AI

Water: 4,100 L/day est.; Crusoe's figure of about 50,000 gallons per building per year for maintenance, across eight buildings at full buildout. Excludes the one-time initial fill of about one million gallons per building.; Crusoe

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh at full reported capacity
Water: 0.0 liters of water

After less than a minute of listening, at the rates above. The power figure is an upper bound, not measured use. Based on estimates.

Operator: Crusoe for Oracle and OpenAI
Status: Operating

Crusoe said more than 5,600 construction workers were on site every day while the campus went up.

Captions

Each of the eight buildings takes about one million gallons of water to fill its cooling loop, once.
After that, Crusoe says each building uses about 50,000 gallons a year, less than a typical American household.
Heat leaves through air-cooled chillers instead of evaporating water.
Backup power comes from on-site natural gas turbines rather than diesel generators.
Epoch AI estimates about 421 megawatts of computing was running by mid-2026.
Once complete, the campus is expected to pay up to 32% of the city's budgeted property tax revenue.

The scene

Drawn from Crusoe Stargate campus (Lancium Clean Campus), 615 FM 2404, Abilene, Texas. Building outlines, substations and the campus boundary from OpenStreetMap; heights and colors are estimates, and the chillers and gas turbines are left out because their exact places are not documented.

Sources

Crusoe, An inside look at the Abilene AI data center crusoe.ai accessed 25 Oct 2026
Epoch AI, Frontier Data Centers: OpenAI Stargate Abilene epoch.ai accessed 25 Oct 2026

The Dalles, Oregon

Drift off beside the Columbia, where the water figures were once a trade secret.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: Not disclosed; Google does not publish the power draw of its campus here.

Water: 3.7 million L/day; Google reported 361.4 million gallons of water consumed in 2024 (withdrawal minus discharge), averaged over the year.; Google, 2025

Since you pressed play

Water: 0.0 liters of water

After less than a minute of listening, at the rate above.

Operator: Google
Status: Operating

A water advocate said one year of Google's use here could cover the whole seven square miles of town about three inches deep.

Captions

Google opened its first data center here in 2006.
In 2024, Google's data centers here consumed 361.4 million gallons of water.
For 13 months, the city fought in court to keep that kind of figure private.
Google paid the city's legal costs.
About 15,000 people live in The Dalles.
Farms and orchards are still the biggest water users in town.
Google reports a power usage effectiveness of 1.06 for its newer facility here.

The scene

Drawn from Google The Dalles original campus, 4200 Columbia Road, The Dalles, Oregon. Building outlines and the river edge from OpenStreetMap; heights, wall colors and the generator layout are estimates from photos and aerial imagery.

Sources

Associated Press (via KSAT), Oregon city drops fight to keep Google water use private, December 2022 ksat.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
Google, 2025 Environmental Report, water use and PUE by data center location gstatic.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
Google Data Centers, The Dalles, Oregon datacenters.google accessed 25 Oct 2026

Phoenix metro, Arizona

Warm, dry air for a clear and empty mind.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 510 MW est.; CBRE's count of data center inventory in the Phoenix market in the first half of 2024. This is built capacity, not measured draw, and the market has grown since.; CBRE, 2024

Water: 4 million L/day est.; Ceres estimate of 385 million gallons a year used for on-site cooling across Phoenix-area data centers, as reported by Cronkite News, averaged over the year.; Cronkite News, 2026

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh at full reported capacity
Water: 0.0 liters of water

After less than a minute of listening, at the rates above. The power figure is an upper bound, not measured use. Based on estimates.

Operator: Many operators
Status: Operating

In Ahwatukee, a yard sign reads NoDataCenterAhwatukee.org.

Captions

Data centers in the Phoenix area use an estimated 385 million gallons of water a year for cooling.
Counting the water used to make their electricity, the estimate rises to 3.3 billion gallons.
In 2024, CBRE counted 510 megawatts of data center capacity in the Valley, with 334 more under construction.
Arizona gets about 40% of its water from the Colorado River.
In August 2026, a federal plan told Arizona to cut its Colorado River use by 760,000 acre-feet.
Some operators here use closed-loop cooling that recirculates the same water.
Arizona has 113 data centers in operation.

The scene

Drawn from Iron Mountain AZP-1 and AZP-2, 615 N 48th Street, Phoenix, Arizona. Building outlines and the AZP-1 generator rows from OpenStreetMap; heights, wall colors and the layout of the cooling modules, tanks and AZP-2 equipment are estimates from aerial imagery.

Sources

Cronkite News, Data centers and the Colorado River, September 2026 cronkitenews.azpbs.org accessed 25 Oct 2026
CBRE, Phoenix moves ahead of Silicon Valley in data center inventory, August 2024 cbre.com accessed 25 Oct 2026

Colón and El Marqués, Querétaro

Rest easy on the dry high plains of central Mexico.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 250 MW est.; Combined maximum capacity reported by the national data center association for the 14 data centers it counts in Querétaro. Capacity, not measured draw.; Agência Pública, 2025

Water: 110,000 L/day est.; Microsoft's stated 40 million liters a year for its three Querétaro data centers, averaged over the year. Other operators do not publish comparable totals, so the cluster figure is higher.; TechSpot, 2025

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh at full reported capacity
Water: 0.0 liters of water

After less than a minute of listening, at the rates above. The power figure is an upper bound, not measured use. Based on estimates.

Operator: Many operators
Status: Operating

In Viborillas, near the industrial parks, the power went out at least three times in August 2025, and some neighbors bought their own generators.

Captions

Seventeen of Querétaro's eighteen municipalities are in drought.
Microsoft says its three data centers here use 40 million liters of water a year.
Microsoft's well concession for one site equals 24% of the water allocated to Colón for public and urban use.
Amazon chose an air-cooled design that needs no ongoing cooling water.
Ascenty says its cooling loop is closed and does not evaporate water.
While it waited for a grid connection, Microsoft received permission to run seven gas generators.
Mexico's grid operator warned that data centers could overload the local network.

The scene

Drawn from Ascenty Querétaro 1, Camino a Nativitas 800, Colón, Querétaro. Building outlines traced from aerial imagery and the compound wall from OpenStreetMap; heights, wall colors and the split between generators and chillers are estimates.

Sources

Agência Pública, In Mexico, the promised land of data centers, October 2025 apublica.org accessed 25 Oct 2026
Context (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Thirsty data centres spring up in water-poor Mexican town, September 2024 context.news accessed 25 Oct 2026
TechSpot, Microsoft turns to gas generators to keep Mexico data center running, September 2025 techspot.com accessed 25 Oct 2026

Dublin, Ireland

Soft Irish rain, and almost a quarter of the country's electricity.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 875 MW est.; Ireland's 2025 data centre consumption of 7,663 GWh, from the CSO, averaged over the year. This is a national figure; the CSO does not break it down by county.; Central Statistics Office, 2025

Water: Not disclosed; No cluster-wide water figure is published. Google reports its Dublin facility is air-cooled and consumed 0.1 million gallons in 2024.; Google, 2025

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh of electricity

After less than a minute of listening, at the rate above. Based on estimates.

Operator: Many operators
Status: Operating

In 2025, Ireland's data centres used more metered electricity than all of the country's urban homes together.

Captions

In 2025, data centres used 23% of Ireland's metered electricity.
Urban households used 18%.
In 2015, the data centre share was 5%.
Data centre use grew 10% in a single year, while everyone else grew 2%.
Google's Dublin facility is air-cooled and consumed 0.1 million gallons of water in 2024.
Google reports a power usage effectiveness of 1.08 for its Dublin site.

The scene

Drawn from Google Dublin data centre campus, Grange Castle Business Park and Profile Park, Clondalkin, Dublin 22. Footprints, generators, flues, tanks and the fence come from OpenStreetMap and the west hall's 20 m height from a planning report, while the east hall's height, all wall colours and the row of roof plant are estimates.

Sources

Central Statistics Office, Data Centres Metered Electricity Consumption 2025 cso.ie accessed 25 Oct 2026
Google, 2025 Environmental Report, water use and PUE by data center location gstatic.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
Central Statistics Office, Data Centres Metered Electricity Consumption 2024 cso.ie accessed 25 Oct 2026

Luleå, Norrbotten, Sweden

Cool air from the edge of the Arctic, and nothing else to think about.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 120 MW est.; Power requirement reported when the project was announced in 2011. Meta does not publish a current figure.; designboom, 2011

Water: Not disclosed; Meta does not publish a water figure for this site. It is cooled with outside air rather than evaporative chillers.

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh at full reported capacity

After less than a minute of listening, at the rate above. The power figure is an upper bound, not measured use. Based on estimates.

Operator: Meta
Status: Operating

When the project was announced, about 300 full-time jobs were expected in its first three years, and the Swedish government contributed a subsidy of 103 million kronor.

Captions

The site was planned to need 120 megawatts, all from hydropower.
In 2011, the mayor said the nearby Lule River supplies about nine percent of Sweden's electricity.
Servers here are cooled by outside air instead of air conditioning.
Early tests showed a power usage effectiveness of about 1.07.
The hydropower proved reliable enough to remove most of the site's backup capacity.
Since 1961, temperatures here have stayed above 30 °C for less than 24 hours in total.
It was Facebook's first data centre in Europe.

The scene

Drawn from Meta Luleå data centre campus, Datavägen, Porsön, Luleå. Outlines come from OpenStreetMap and building 1's sage and charcoal colours from photos, but every height is estimated, the annex split and transformer places are approximate, and the facades of buildings 2 and 3 are guesses.

Sources

designboom, Facebook's first European data centre in Luleå, Sweden, October 2011 designboom.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
AFP (via Capital FM), Facebook to build massive Arctic data centre in Sweden, October 2011 capitalfm.africa accessed 25 Oct 2026
Eco-Business, Facebook likes renewable energy, launches Arctic data centre, June 2013 eco-business.com accessed 25 Oct 2026

Hamina, Kymenlaakso, Finland

Cool seawater from the Gulf of Finland, drawn in and let go.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: Not disclosed; Google does not publish the power draw of this site.

Water: 3,100 L/day; Google reported 0.3 million gallons of water consumed in 2024, averaged over the year. Google's figures exclude seawater, which does most of the cooling here.; Google, 2025

Since you pressed play

Water: 0.0 liters of water

After less than a minute of listening, at the rate above.

Operator: Google
Status: Operating

Heat from the servers is meant to warm homes, schools and public buildings in Hamina, given to the local utility at no cost.

Captions

Seawater reaches the halls through a tunnel built for a paper mill in the 1950s.
Google bought the closed Summa paper mill in 2009 and opened the data centre in 2011.
The cooling system uses no chillers.
Before it returns to the gulf, the warmed water is mixed with fresh seawater to bring it closer to the inlet temperature.
Recovered heat is expected to cover about 80% of Hamina's district heating needs.
Excluding seawater, the site consumed 0.3 million gallons of water in 2024.
About 400 people work on the campus.

The scene

Drawn from Google Hamina data centre campus at the former Stora Enso Summa paper mill, Summa, Hamina. Outlines and the shoreline come from OpenStreetMap, but all heights are guesses, the annex strips and fan rows are placed from an aerial photo, and the colours are read from a single photo taken from the sea.

Sources

The Register, Google opens Finnish data center with seawater cooling, May 2011 theregister.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
Business Finland, Google announced an expansion of its Hamina data center and a new heat recovery project, May 2024 businessfinland.fi accessed 25 Oct 2026
Google, 2025 Environmental Report, water use and PUE by data center location gstatic.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
Google Data Centers, Hamina, Finland datacenters.google accessed 25 Oct 2026

Singapore

Warm, humid air, carefully conditioned, on an island with no room to spare.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 1,400 MW est.; Existing data centre capacity of about 1.4 GW, as cited when the Green Data Centre Roadmap was announced in May 2024. Capacity, not measured draw.; Linklaters, 2024

Water: Not disclosed; No national total is published. The government reports a median water usage effectiveness of 2.2 cubic meters per megawatt-hour for data centres in 2021.; Linklaters, 2024

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh at full reported capacity

After less than a minute of listening, at the rate above. The power figure is an upper bound, not measured use. Based on estimates.

Operator: Many operators
Status: Operating

Asked about data centres in Parliament, the trade and industry minister said the country had to find a way to manage their growth in a sustainable manner.

Captions

In 2020, data centres used about 7% of Singapore's electricity.
In 2019, the government paused new data centre construction to review the industry.
When it reopened, more than 20 proposals competed for 80 megawatts.
Cooling towers account for up to 97% of a data centre's water use.
The median data centre here used 2.2 cubic meters of water per megawatt-hour in 2021.
The government wants every data centre, old or new, at a power usage effectiveness of 1.3 or better within ten years.
Existing capacity is about 1.4 gigawatts.

The scene

Drawn from Equinix SG4, 7 Tai Seng Drive, Singapore. The SG4 outline and height come from OpenStreetMap and its colours from Equinix photos, while the rooftop cooling plant is placed by guess because its position on the roof is not published.

Sources

W.Media, Singapore to lift moratorium on data centres but with prerequisites, January 2022 w.media accessed 25 Oct 2026
Linklaters, Singapore announces at least 300 megawatts increase in data centre capacity, May 2024 techinsights.linklaters.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
Data Center Knowledge, Singapore ends data center pause as it seeks sustainable growth, July 2023 datacenterknowledge.com accessed 25 Oct 2026

Frankfurt am Main, Hesse

An even, balanced tone from the middle of Europe's internet.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 660 MW est.; Connected load of data centres in the grid area of Mainova, which covers most of the city, as reported in September 2026. Connected load is an upper bound, not measured draw.; hessenschau, 2026

Water: Not disclosed; No city-wide water figure for data centres is published.

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh at full reported capacity

After less than a minute of listening, at the rate above. The power figure is an upper bound, not measured use. Based on estimates.

Operator: Many operators
Status: Operating

In the Gallus district, server heat from a neighboring data centre is meant to cover up to 75% of the heating for about 1,300 apartments.

Captions

Data centres in Mainova's grid area have about 660 megawatts of connected load.
They account for about a fifth of the electricity used in that grid.
The city counts 85 data centre buildings.
In 2017, they used more electricity than all of Frankfurt's households together.
From 2026, new data centres in Germany must reuse at least 10% of their waste heat.
In the Gallus district, server heat is meant to warm about 1,300 apartments.
Much of this grew up around DE-CIX, one of the busiest internet exchanges in the world.

The scene

Drawn from Digital Realty Frankfurt campus (formerly Interxion), Hanauer Landstraße and Weismüllerstraße, Frankfurt-Ostend. Building outlines come from OpenStreetMap, but the heights are worked out from storey counts, the older blocks' colours are guesses, and the roof plant and exhaust stacks are placed roughly from street photos.

Sources

hessenschau, Rechenzentrums-Hotspot ohne Limit?, September 2026 hessenschau.de accessed 25 Oct 2026
ZfK, Grüne Wärme für die Internethauptstadt zfk.de accessed 25 Oct 2026
Clean Energy Wire, Internet hub Frankfurt struggles to reduce energy use, November 2019 cleanenergywire.org accessed 25 Oct 2026

EMEC Billia Croo test site, Orkney, Scotland

Thirty-five meters down, where nothing needs your attention.

Synthesized. Not a real recording.

Power: 240 kW; The vessel used about 240 kW to power its 12 racks.; eeNews Europe, 2018

Water: Not disclosed; Cooled by the surrounding seawater. No freshwater figure was published.

Since you pressed play

Electricity: 0.0 kWh of electricity

After less than a minute of listening, at the rate above.

Operator: Microsoft (Project Natick)
Status: Retired

A local Orkney marine firm helped lower the vessel to the seabed in 2018, lifted it back up in 2020, and power washed it.

Captions

From 2018 to 2020, this data centre sat 117 feet down on the seabed off Orkney.
It held 864 servers in a sealed steel tube filled with dry nitrogen.
Its servers failed at one eighth the rate of an identical setup on land.
It drew about 240 kilowatts from a grid supplied entirely by wind and solar.
When it came up, it wore a thin coat of algae and barnacles.
Sea anemones on its base had grown to about the size of a cantaloupe.
Tidal currents at the site reach about 9 mph.

The scene

Drawn from Microsoft Project Natick Northern Isles vessel, EMEC Billia Croo, off Stromness, Orkney. The vessel and its triangular base are drawn to Microsoft's published sizes, but the ballast cans are sized from photos and the heading on the seabed is unknown.

Sources

Microsoft, Microsoft finds underwater datacenters are reliable, practical and use energy sustainably, September 2020 news.microsoft.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
eeNews Europe, Microsoft sinks a datacentre in the sea off Orkney, June 2018 eenewseurope.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
The Register, Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces, September 2020 theregister.com accessed 25 Oct 2026
The Orcadian, Underwater data centre installed on the seabed off Orkney, June 2018 orcadian.co.uk accessed 25 Oct 2026

About this facility

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