Provides a visualization of the US data center market
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has released a map illustrating the US data center sector and its geospatial relationship with the critical infrastructure that serves it.
Created by Billy Roberts, a cartographer working at the lab, the map offers an intricate look at the country’s data center sector, providing an insight into the major hotspots and burgeoning locations.
The map depicts the spatial connections among data center sites, transmission networks, fiber optic routes, and urban regions. Transmission lines are distinguished by color according to voltage class, fiber optic pathways are represented with estimated routes, and data center capacity in each area is illustrated using circles of different sizes.
“I often get asked to make seemingly impossible maps,” said Roberts on LinkedIn. “Recently, I was asked to map existing data centers across the US. Also, it needs to show fiber optic lines. Oh, and transmission lines. Probably water resource availability too. Oh, and major urban areas. Yeah, and it needs to fit on a single slide.”
Unfortunately, due to the sensitive nature of the data used, the map cannot be made available in an interactive format. However, it does provide a telling viewpoint of the growth of the sector, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the data center market's impact across the US.
The map is available via the NREL website.
According to NREL, it did not produce the datasets used in the map, and therefore is not responsible for their accuracy, completeness, or reliability.
