Where is “the cloud,” anyway? It’s in a bunch of nondescript warehouses all over the country. Zachary Crockett serves up the story.

SOURCES:
- Chris Kimm, senior vice president of global customer care and customer experience at Equinix.
- Raul Martynek, C.E.O. of DataBank.
- Clayton Rosati, associate professor of geography at Bowling Green State University.

RESOURCES:
- "How Data Center Alley Is Changing Northern Virginia," by Mac Carey (Oxford American, 2025).
- "Noisy, Hungry Data Centers Are Catching Communities by Surprise," by Sean Patrick Cooper (The New York Times, 2024).
- "As Data Centers for AI Strain the Power Grid, Bills Rise for Everyday Customers," by Evan Halper and Caroline O'Donovan (The Washington Post, 2024).
- "Data Plantation: Northern Virginia and the Territorialization of Digital Civilization in 'The Internet Capital of the World'," by Clayton Rosati, Aju James, and Kathryne Metcalf (Online Media and Global Communication, 2023).
- "A New Front in the Water Wars: Your Internet Use," by Shannon Osaka (The Washington Post, 2023).

EXTRAS:
- "Why Is It So Hard (and Expensive) to Build Anything in America?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
- Data Center Map.

92. Data Centers

The Economics of Everyday Things