Prince George’s County has formed a task force to shape a new county policy for data centers. That task force is now trying to inform local communities about what data centers are, while also asking for feedback from residents on policy. 

Data centers are buildings or complexes containing the computers and servers that store and process internet data for businesses and organizations. In recent years, the demand for data centers has soared because of their importance in developing artificial intelligence, or AI,  models.

The increased building of data centers has come with some controversy, though. Data centers require an enormous amount of power, which means that, in many cases, the electrical infrastructure has to be improved and increased in size. Centers also require a tremendous amount of water to cool their systems.

In some places in the country, people have already seen their electricity bills increase due to the power demands of data centers, according to recent reporting from The Washington Post.

This spike in electricity bills has coincided with a rise in the cost of buying energy capacity from power plants for utilities companies. Thirteen states, including Maryland, operate in what’s called the “capacity market,” most of them on the East Coast, and make bids to buy capacity every year. 

This April, the county council created the Qualified Data Center Task Force to evaluate the potential risks and benefits data centers pose to Prince George’s County after a bill meant to streamline the process for approving data centers failed last year. The task force is also supposed to craft a report that recommends potential locations for data centers and policies around approving locations.

According to James Hunt, deputy director of operations for the county’s planning department — which is itself part of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) — the task force is made up of data center stakeholders, from county councilmembers to community business leaders. 

“Task force members have been very engaged,” Hunt said. “They want to know more [about data centers] because they do realize how important this topic is to the county.”

The task force held three community meetings in July to get residents’ feedback on potential data center policy, according to Hunt. The meetings were held in Riverdale Park on July 17, Landover on July 24, and Fort Washington on July 26.

The M-NCPPC worked with the San Francisco-based architecture and design firm Gensler — the largest architectural firm in the world — to organize the meetings. Gensler will also write up a study for the task force to present to the county in November that will incorporate community feedback received at the meetings, and advise the county on what data center policy should look like, according to Hunt.

The meetings covered identical content, including what data centers are. At the beginning of each meeting, members of the county planning department emphasized that the purpose of the task force was not to plan a new data center, but to craft policy for potential construction. 

One purpose of the meeting’s overview was to describe the four different sizes of data centers: edge, enterprise, colocation and hyperscale. 

Edge data centers are the smaller, building- or room-sized data centers. Enterprise and colocation are larger data centers that can store data for multiple companies. Hyperscale centers are the enormous complexes built by big tech companies, like Google or Amazon, that are 350,000 square feet or more. 

The overview then covered potential benefits of data center construction, such as job creation and tax revenue, as well as potential issues like power usage, water usage and noise pollution. 

The roundtable discussions, moderated by Gensler and county representatives, gave community members a more personal setting to discuss potential data policy, comment on benefits and concerns, and ask questions. 

“The intent here is to pull the information from the community, so the policy makers, such as our county councilmembers, can make an informed decision on their end,” Hunt said.

Hunt noted that the task force wants the community’s input on the whole process — from where the data centers should be going if they are built, to what the design of the buildings should look like. 

Residents were particularly interested in water usage, according to Hunt.

“A lot of the community members have raised concerns because they really want these data centers to utilize gray water or potable water on site, as opposed to having a huge impact on to the water grid that we have here in Prince George’s County,” he said. (Gray water is relatively clean waste water from household sources like sinks and washing machines.) 

“The community meetings have been very successful,” Hunt said. “The community really had a lot of input and insight into this, and gave us a lot of great feedback.”

Corey Cason, a 20-year county resident who currently lives in Bowie, attended the July 17 Riverdale Park meeting after seeing an online announcement.

“I’m fairly familiar with data centers as a whole, but today was definitely helpful to get a better understanding of what direction the county is going,” Cason said.

Herbert Jones, president of the Tatallon North Area Civics Association, also attended the Riverdale Park meeting. He said that he thought the engagement with the community was great, but that the task force’s final report will be more important than the community meetings themselves.

“The final analysis will come in their report, the data center task force report to the county council, and what they have in there as recommendations,” Jones said. “Because, I believe, to address some of these issues, we’re gonna need some legislative initiatives.” 

Jones said the biggest issue he sees with data centers is zoning.

“The zoning issue is big because right now, currently, the zoning allows for a data center to be in a residential community. So that’s a problem for me as the association president,” Jones said.

The task force is currently holding data center meetings every second Wednesday of the month, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the planning department headquarters in Largo. These meetings are open to the public, according to Hunt, and will happen every month until the task force presents its report to the county council in November.

Zephan Matteson is an undergraduate journalism major at the University of Maryland.