North Carolina
DataCentersExposed tracks 59 AI data centers in North Carolina — 5 operating and 16 in the pipeline — across 18 counties, drawing 3.1 GW of reported power demand from 12 tracked corporate operators.
Sources: Methodology, Coverage scorecard
Reporting by Eric Keller · Updated May 29, 2026
North Carolina at a glance
The largest footprint in North Carolina belongs to Microsoft Corporation, behind 5 tracked facilities. TierPoint, LLC, Apple Inc., and Flexential Corp. 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: Wake County leads North Carolina with 6 facilities and a composite risk score of 52/100. Catawba County and Caldwell 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.
North Carolina is not done growing. 16 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: 1 state bill mentioning data centers and 6 recent news items are tracked for North Carolina 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.
2035 Buildout Outlook
Under the model's moderate-growth scenario (5%/yr annual load growth), PNNL's IM3 model sites about 6 standardized 36 MW campuses in North Carolina by 2035 — roughly 216 MW of new electricity demand and ~209 M gal/yr of cooling water. Under the higher-growth scenario (15%/yr) that climbs to 33 campuses (1.2 GW). For scale, we currently track 59 real data centers in North Carolina (3.1 GW of reported power).
- Low growth4144 MW · ~139 M gal/yr cooling water
- Moderate growth6216 MW · ~209 M gal/yr cooling water
- High growth16576 MW · ~557 M gal/yr cooling water
- Higher growth331.2 GW · ~1.1 billion gal/yr cooling water
The model assigns ~100% of these campuses' cooling to evaporative water cooling in North Carolina (the rest to mechanical/air cooling), a split it derives from local water stress and wet-bulb temperature.
These are modeled candidate sites, not announced or permitted facilities. PNNL's IM3 model places identical 36 MW unit-campuses at feasible locations under each scenario — it shows where demand could concentrate, never a specific parcel. Figures use a market-gravity weight of 50. How the model works.
Top operators in North Carolina
County risk leaderboard
| County | Facilities | Pipeline | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wake County | 6 | — | 52 |
| Catawba County | 6 | 4 | 35 |
| Caldwell County | 3 | — | 18 |
| Mecklenburg County | 7 | 1 | 9 |
| Rutherford County | 2 | — | 8 |
| Durham County | 3 | — | 7 |
| Cleveland County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Iredell County | 3 | 1 | — |
| Person County | 2 | 2 | — |
| Lee County | 2 | 2 | — |
| Richmond County | 2 | 2 | — |
| Cherokee County | 1 | — | — |
Pipeline & proposals
- Proposed900 MWKingsboro Data Center ProjectEnergy Storage Solutions · Edgecombe County
- Proposed400 MWDigital Reality Charlotte Data CenterOperator unknown · Mecklenburg County
- Proposed99 MWEnovum Data CenterOperator unknown · Rockingham County
- Proposed10 MWDC Blox: High PointOperator unknown · Guilford County
- ProposedApple Person County Mega Park (land)Apple Data Services LLC · Person County County
- ProposedDeep River Data AI Data CenterDeep River Data · Lee County