The number of data centers around the Pacific Northwest has exploded in recent decades, growing from less than two dozen in 2008 to more than 200 across Oregon and Washington today.
But Southwest Washington — despite its longstanding role as a regional industrial and manufacturing hub — is home to none of the state’s roughly 100 data centers, the backbone to AI.
Local views on the facilities are mixed.
Many Cowlitz and Clark counties leaders say data centers are too costly and employ few people, while the Longview City Council is reviewing whether to codify allowing the centers in all industrial zones as a way to drive development.
The Trump Administration also released a plan in January to invest $500 billion to fuel U.S. development of AI infrastructure and data centers, as tech goliaths continue to push to integrate AI into every facet of life.
What is a data center?
Data centers are giant warehouses filled with endless rows of computer servers, stacked floor to ceiling that are continuously working to complete tasks like processing google searches and storing cloud photos.
Data centers can support a range of such IT needs, while cryptocurrency mining facilities, located in similar computer-stacked warehouses, only create digital currency.
A latter company pulled plans to join Longview's Mint Industrial Farm in 2023, and another did so five years prior at Longview's former Fishers Lane water treatment plant.
City planning leaders see that as a good thing. Longview Community Development Director Nick Little said cryptocurrency mining facilities do not benefit the city by paying B&O taxes or permits, raising land value, or employing many people.
A March 13 public hearing will review whether the City Council believes data centers could offer such benefits.
Little said if Microsoft wanted to house a permanent data center in Longview, the proposed code would give the flexibility to do so, while banning cryptocurrency mining facilities, which can be confused for one another.
Search for resources
Regional leaders say finding the power needed to run such facilities could be difficult.
Jennifer Wray-Keene, executive director for the Port of Woodland, said local ports struggle today to find the power they need, even without demand nearby data centers.
Data centers used 4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023, according to a newly released Department of Energy report. But that number will jump to 7-12% in the next three years alone — with regions that have become hotbeds for the facilities like the Pacific Northwest likely bearing the brunt of that.
In addition, the department cites in preliminary reports that cryptocurrency mining accounted for up to 2.3% of U.S. electricity in 2023 — the equivalent of up to six million homes.
Alice Dietz, a spokesperson at Cowlitz County Public Utility District, said the West's elimination of carbon-producing energy sources, like burning coal, has limited regional power, and the grid has capacity limitations when getting energy to Southwest Washington.
Clark and Cowlitz counties also miss out on tax breaks data centers in either rural or large urban counties can count on, said Eliyah Eells, a spokesperson for Columbia River Economic Development Council which covers Clark County.
Data centers and cryptocurrency mining operations also need lots of land, said Eells.
And land is much less expensive east of the Cascade Mountains, said Ted Sprague, president of the Cowlitz Economic Development Council, due to Cowlitz and Clark counties’ prime locations along Interstate 5, a railroad mainline and the Columbia River with its deepwater international ports.
'A drain on local infrastructure'
Sprague said if he’s looking to choose between two projects that would use 30 megawatts of power, where one creates four jobs and the other 250, “we're much more inclined to welcome the latter.”
“Data centers are something we have never pursued, and something that, frankly, we are not interested in,” he said. “They utilize too much power in our opinion, they do not create very many jobs, if any of all — you know, one or two or three — and they're just a drain on local infrastructure.”
Numbers back up Sprague’s hesitations.
Washington let the industry off the hook for $474 million in taxes between 2018 and 2024, a joint ProPublica and Seattle Times investigation found. Those incentives were partly intended to create jobs, but the industry won't reveal how many jobs it actually created. The number could be as low as 260 workers cumulatively.
Sprague currently has his sights set on bringing home operations that are increasingly beneficial for the region — especially through industrial symbiosis, where groups of businesses use each others’ byproducts to increase overall production efficiency and lower costs.
“We've got some available land in Port of Kalama, Castle Rock, Longview — and why not start it from the beginning?” he said. “Put the puzzle together in the beginning before we just start going willy nilly and adding companies that don't benefit other companies. We want to be more intentional in our recruitment.”
Henry Brannan covers the Columbia River for The Daily News and The Columbian through Washington State University's state-funded journalism project, The Murrow News Fellowship.
