California

The largest footprint in California belongs to American Tower Corporation, behind 18 tracked facilities. Equinix, Inc., Digital Realty Trust, Inc., and CenterSquare (formerly Cyxtera) round out the most active operators in the state. Many of these sites are filed under shell or project names rather than the parent's — our operator column resolves them back to the real corporate parent wherever the chain is documented.

Geographically, the buildout clusters: Santa Clara County leads California with 75 facilities and a composite risk score of 61/100. Los Angeles County and Alameda County follow. Our county risk score weights project exposure (40%), power demand (30%), water draw (15%), and land footprint (15%); the full breakdown is shown on each county page.

California is not done growing. 14 facilities are in the pipeline — proposed, permitted, or under construction — which is where residents still have a say at zoning hearings and in rate cases. Each pending project is a decision about land, water, electricity prices, and tax revenue that hasn't been finalized.

We also surface the accountability trail: 8 state bills mentioning data centers and 6 recent news items are tracked for California below, pulled from LegiScan and GDELT and refreshed automatically. Legislation is linked to the counties and operators it names; news is classified by community sentiment.