Data Centers: What Stays Local, What Doesn’t

OSU Extension | Gabriel E. Lade

April 29, 2026

So far, my newsletter series has covered why I believe data centers are so attracted to Ohio and fiscal costs of giving tax breaks to data centers.

In this newsletter, I will describe several local costs and benefits of data centers to communities that host them (at least the costs and benefits I have thought through so far).

My last newsletter will cover the broader policy picture and summarize my current thinking on how local governments can think through this fast-moving and contentious issue.

Who owns data centers?

Let’s start with a simple question: who owns Ohio’s data centers?

Many business names on the press releases are familiar: Amazon, Google, Microsoft. Behind them sits a second tier of companies most Ohioans have never heard of: Digital Realty, Equinix, Vantage Data Centers, QTS, and others. Some are publicly traded data-center REITs; others are specialized private operators that build, own, or lease hyperscale capacity to large technology companies.

That is not a critique. Ohio attracts plenty of out-of-state capital. But it does raise a question worth asking before a community offers a 15 (or 30!) year tax abatement: where does the value created actually go?

In this and my next newsletter, I argue that some of the answer is in communities’ control.

Local Benefits

In my first newsletter, I argued that data centers are attracted to Ohio in part because of its readily available open space and infrastructure. That said, data centers may need further infrastructure upgrades, which could benefit local communities. [I’m setting aside who pays for these upgrades for now.]

These upgrades fall into two main categories.

Electricity infrastructure. Hyperscale facilities require new or hardened utility substations and reinforced local transmission lines. When these upgrades are built with capacity beyond what the data center alone needs, they can improve reliability for everyone on the same circuit. For example, Meta’s recently announced data center in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin includes nearly $200 million in network upgrades, substations, and transmission investments, along with a $15 million contribution to the local energy assistance fund.

Fiber and broadband. Data centers need very large, fast fiber connections. The middle-mile networks built to serve them can lower the cost of extending fiber to homes and businesses in the surrounding area. Recent reporting describes carriers like Lumen and Zayo extending data-center fiber routes into nearby rural communities, in some cases connecting individual farms along the build path.

Neither of these benefits is automatic. Both depend on whether they get written into the agreement. I will return to this in the next newsletter.

Read the entire newsletter here.