Data Center Site Readiness Scorecard: Ranking U.S. Metros on Power, Land & Pipeline

1950 Opportunity Way at RTC Next in Reston, Virginia—Class A office space highlighting land use comp

Introduction: The Rush for Data Center Capacity

The race to build new data centers has never been more intense. Surging demand from cloud computing, AI, and digital services is colliding with the realities of infrastructure limits. As generative AI and cloud adoption drive record data center leasing, available capacity is being absorbed faster than ever before. For data center investors, commercial real estate (CRE) developers, hyperscale operators, and utilities, choosing the right location is now a critical strategic decision. In this context, we introduce a Data Center Site Readiness scorecard to evaluate which U.S. metros are best prepared to support large-scale data center growth in the near term.

This market analyst brief applies the scorecard across key U.S. data center hubs, ranking each market on three fundamental criteria: Power, Land, and Pipeline. Each category is scored on a 1–5 scale (with 5 indicating ideal conditions), and an overall Site Readiness Score is calculated using weighted importance (Power 40%, Land 30%, Pipeline 30%). The goal is to quantify which metros offer the most favorable environment for new hyperscale development, based on current infrastructure and trends.

Criteria for Data Center Site Readiness

Power (40% weight): Power availability is the foremost concern for hyperscale projects. This score considers the availability of high-voltage electricity (existing grid capacity and generation mix), timeline for new substation development, and overall grid reliability/stability. A top score indicates ample power with minimal bottlenecks – for example, regions with ongoing grid upgrades or abundant generation capacity. Conversely, markets facing utility capacity constraints or long timelines for new connections rate lower. Recent industry analysis warns that access to electricity is becoming the biggest constraint on data center growth, as aging infrastructure and slow transmission build-outs lag demand.

Land (30% weight): Land suitability measures zoning favorability, land cost, and proximity to necessary infrastructure. High-scoring markets have affordable, available land that is zoned or easily approved for data centers, with supportive local policies and access to fiber, highways, and utilities. Tax incentives and streamlined permitting can boost this score. By contrast, dense or high-cost areas with difficult zoning or community opposition score lower. For example, Loudoun County, VA removed by-right data center zoning in 2025, slowing expansion and signaling increased permitting hurdles. In contrast, places like Arizona offer vast tracts of industrial land with business-friendly incentives (such as 20-year tax exemptions on data center equipment purchases) to attract development.

Pipeline (30% weight): Pipeline assesses the visible trajectory of data center development in each market – projects under construction, permitted or in planning, as well as historical absorption rates and speed of local permitting. A strong pipeline indicates not only current capacity coming online, but also that local governments can process permits quickly and that demand has consistently met new supply. Rapid absorption of new builds is a positive signal. For instance, Dallas-Fort Worth had ~600 MW under construction in 2025 with 95% already pre-leased, reflecting extraordinary demand and fast take-up. A high pipeline score can also reflect speculative builds (showing developer confidence) and active interest by hyperscalers. Meanwhile, a market with minimal upcoming projects or slow approvals would score poorly on pipeline.

Each criterion is scored from 1 (poor conditions) to 5 (excellent conditions). Below we apply this scorecard to a selection of 10 major and emerging U.S. data center metros. The resulting rankings highlight which markets are “ready” for the next wave of hyperscale build-outs – and which face headwinds.

Data Center Site Readiness Scorecard: Top U.S. Metros Ranked

The comparative table below ranks 10 U.S. metros on our Site Readiness scorecard. We evaluate Power, Land, and Pipeline for each market, assign 1–5 scores, and calculate an overall weighted score (out of 5). The metros selected include established data center hubs and fast-growing up-and-comers, providing a broad view for investors and developers.

Metro Area	Power	Land	Pipeline	Overall Score
Phoenix, AZ (Goodyear)	5	5	5	5.0
Dallas–Fort Worth, TX	4	5	5	4.7
Hillsboro, OR (Portland)	4	4	4	4.0
Central Washington (Quincy)	5	5	3	4.0
Atlanta, GA	4	4	3	3.7
Omaha, NE (Sarpy County)	4	5	2	3.7
Chicago, IL	4	4	3	3.7
Northern Virginia (NoVA)	3	3	4	3.3
Silicon Valley, CA	2	1	2	2.1
Northern New Jersey	3	2	2	2.3

Scoring note: A score of 5 denotes ideal conditions (e.g., unlimited power, very low land cost with easy zoning, robust pipeline), while 1 denotes severely constrained conditions. Overall Score is weighted (Power 40%, Land 30%, Pipeline 30%). Metros are ranked by overall score.

Leaders: Markets Best Positioned for Hyperscale Growth

Phoenix, Arizona (Goodyear & Greater Phoenix) – Site Readiness Score: 5.0. The Phoenix metro emerges as a top-rated market, excelling across power, land, and pipeline. Phoenix is now one of the largest data center hubs in the U.S. (over 700 MW of IT load) and growing fast. Power availability in Greater Phoenix is excellent – operators benefit from stable, low-cost electricity from a diversified grid, with costs far below California’s. Local utility APS has ambitious renewable goals and a 50% carbon-free energy mix, ensuring reliable and increasingly clean power supply. Equally important, the region has ample land zoned for industrial use. Submarkets like Goodyear offer 50+ acre sites and supportive municipalities. Data center developers praise the pro-business environment, affordable land, and streamlined permitting in Phoenix. Tax incentives further sweeten the deal – Arizona’s 20-year sales tax exemption on data center equipment significantly cuts costs for operators.

Phoenix’s development pipeline is robust. Numerous campuses are under way, backed by major players. For example, Vantage Data Centers is building a 160 MW campus on 50 acres in Goodyear (3 buildings, 1 million+ sq.ft.). In nearby Mesa, Google broke ground on a new data center in 2023, and Microsoft operates multiple sites in El Mirage and Goodyear. Overall, Phoenix’s pipeline of new capacity (permitted or in construction) is among the nation’s largest, and absorption has been strong as West Coast demand shifts to lower-cost Phoenix. One caveat is resource sustainability: the desert climate means data centers must manage cooling carefully. Water usage and grid strain are being watched, but operators are mitigating impact by using waterless cooling and planning grid upgrades. On balance, Phoenix’s combination of cheap power, cheap land, and aggressive expansion makes it the nation’s most “hyperscale-ready” metro in this scorecard.

Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas – Site Readiness Score: 4.7. North Texas is another leading market, essentially tied with Phoenix. DFW boasts abundant land and a huge development pipeline, though its power score is just shy of perfect due to grid challenges. The Dallas area has a long track record as a data center hub and recently was named the top U.S. metro for CRE prospects in 2026, with data centers cited as a key driver. Land is plentiful across the Metroplex; massive campuses are under development on former ranchland and industrial sites. Local officials are generally welcoming, and Texas offers sales tax incentives on data center equipment. DFW’s pipeline is extraordinary: about 1.5 GW of new capacity (mostly co-location) will be online by 2026, effectively tripling the market size in just a few years. As of mid-2025, Dallas had ~600 MW under construction (95% pre-leased) and another 2.2 GW in planning, indicating developers are racing to meet demand. Vacancy was only 2.4% in early 2025 – meaning supply is essentially fully absorbed.

The power picture in Texas is a double-edged sword. On one hand, Texas’s deregulated power market and growing renewable generation provide opportunities for large energy purchases, and some data center projects even include on-site power generation to supplement the grid. On the other hand, the sheer scale of new demand is straining the ERCOT grid. In 2025, large load interconnection requests in ERCOT quadrupled, reaching over **230 GW of new demand inquiries (70% from data centers). Many proposed projects exceed 100+ MW each, prompting concerns about how quickly utilities can add capacity Industry experts estimate that of Dallas’s ~40 GW of data center power requests, perhaps 5 GW represent realistic near-term demand. Even that “real” demand far outweighs current supply. ERCOT is working on new interconnection rules to prioritize credible projects and has 11 GW of new generation coming online (mostly solar/storage). Grid reliability is a focus, but no major moratoriums have hit Dallas yet as they have in other markets. Overall, DFW’s fundamentals remain strong – if power infrastructure can catch up to the booming pipeline, Dallas will continue as a premier destination for hyperscalers.

Strong Contenders and Emerging Markets

Beyond the top two, several other markets demonstrate high site readiness, especially in regions offering cheap power or targeted incentives:

• Hillsboro, Oregon (Portland Metro) – Score: 4.0. This Pacific Northwest market has quietly become a major data center hub due to its combination of affordable, green power and strategic location. Hillsboro benefits from Oregon’s relatively low-cost electricity (with a high mix of hydro and wind) and enterprise zones that offer property tax abatements for large data center investments. Land is available in designated industrial zones, and the area hosts direct fiber connectivity to Asia, making it attractive for West Coast deployments. The development pipeline includes projects by firms like QTS, Flexential, and Digital Realty. With solid scores in all categories, Hillsboro is a west coast alternative to Silicon Valley – offering lower costs and fewer constraints, though on a smaller scale than Phoenix or Dallas.

• Central Washington (Quincy, WA) – Score: 4.0. Quincy, a small farming town in Washington State, illustrates how cheap power can seed a data center cluster. Quincy has direct access to massive hydropower from the Columbia River, enabling some of the lowest electricity rates in the nation. This has drawn companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Sabey to build large server farms in the area over the past 15+ years. Land is abundant and inexpensive – expansive agricultural land has been converted to data center campuses. Local authorities have generally supported development, using tax revenue from data centers to fund a new high school, hospital and other amenities for the community. The pipeline in Quincy is steady: Microsoft continues to expand (and is also developing nearby sites in Moses Lake and East Wenatchee), although growth is mostly driven by a few hyperscalers rather than many competing providers. Quincy scores slightly lower on pipeline due to the limited number of players, but ongoing projects and infrastructure upgrades keep it active. Notably, Microsoft is implementing community-friendly innovations here – such as paying for grid upgrades and using closed-loop cooling to conserve water, while eschewing local tax breaks – to ensure its new capacity doesn’t strain local resources. The result is a relatively high-readiness area: power and land are no obstacle in Central Washington, and the main limiter is that the market’s growth rate is capped by how much capacity a few large firms deploy each year.

• Atlanta, Georgia – Score: 3.7. The Atlanta metro has long been a network interconnection hub and is now emerging as a hyperscale growth market. Power capacity in Georgia is strong, thanks in part to a diverse energy mix (including new nuclear generation coming online) and robust transmission infrastructure around Atlanta. Industrial land is available on the metro fringes at reasonable cost – for example, social media and cloud giants have built massive campuses in suburban counties like Douglas and Newton County. Georgia actively promotes data center projects with incentives; a state tax exemption on high-tech equipment helped spur a wave of projects (one study found 90% of Georgia’s recent data center activity was due to its tax incentives). Pipeline: Several big projects are underway or recently delivered. Google operates a large campus in Douglas County, QTS and Switch have sizable facilities, and Microsoft has been developing in the region as well. One challenge has been community and environmental concerns – in 2023, residents near a Microsoft site outside Atlanta raised issues about diesel generator emissions and water usage. Overall, Atlanta’s scores are uniformly solid, if not exceptional, placing it among the second tier of highly viable markets for expansion.

• Omaha, Nebraska (Sarpy County) – Score: 3.7. The Omaha area – including Council Bluffs, Iowa and Sarpy County, NE – is an up-and-coming hyperscale location in the Midwest. It offers extremely low-cost land (vast open sites at a fraction of coastal prices) and reliable power from a combo of coal, nuclear, and wind resources managed by regional public power entities. Nebraska has aggressively courted data centers with incentives; the state’s tax abatement program for large data centers has attracted investments from Yahoo (early on) and more recently Facebook (Meta) and Google. Pipeline: Google alone has invested over $5 billion in its Council Bluffs data center campuses since 2007, with another $1 billion announced in 2024 to continue expansion. Meta opened a huge campus in Sarpy County (Papillion, NE) a few years ago, and other firms like Fidelity have built there as well. Despite this success, Omaha’s pipeline score is a bit lower because the market isn’t broad – growth is driven by a handful of hyperscalers rather than a large mix of providers, and local officials have shown some reticence to pursue too many additional mega-projects. In late 2025, Sarpy County’s economic development director noted they are not actively chasing new large-scale hyperscalers for now, partly due to power infrastructure timelines and capacity limits at the local utility (OPPD). Even so, the groundwork (in power and land) is largely in place. With its central U.S. location and low costs, Omaha remains on the radar for future scaled builds, especially if power distribution is enhanced.

• Chicago, Illinois – Score: 3.7. An established data center hub, Chicago offers strong power and decent land options, with a moderate development pipeline. Northern Illinois enjoys considerable electric capacity (bolstered by nuclear generation and robust grid connectivity in the ComEd territory), and the climate favors free cooling much of the year. Land in greater Chicago is more expensive than in rural areas, but sizeable industrial parcels are available in suburbs like Elk Grove Village (which has become a data center cluster tied into the city’s network backbone). Chicago’s pipeline has been steady – major providers (Digital Realty, CyrusOne, NTT, etc.) have expanded footprints there over the past decade – but it has not seen the explosive growth of Dallas or Phoenix recently. The market absorbs new capacity in a measured way, and demand remains healthy from enterprise colocation and cloud nodes serving the Midwest. Chicago’s slightly lower Land score reflects higher taxes and some bureaucratic complexity in Illinois compared to sunbelt states, but overall it remains a reliable choice for data center investment, with no major red flags in power or policy.

Challenged Markets: Constraints in Virginia and Silicon Valley

At the lower end of the rankings, our scorecard reveals two high-profile metros where site readiness is inhibited by significant constraints:

Northern Virginia (NoVA) – Site Readiness Score: 3.3. It may be surprising to see the world’s largest data center market score in the lower tier. Northern Virginia (Ashburn, Loudoun County, and surrounding areas) still houses the densest concentration of data centers globally, but its capacity for additional growth is now limited by power and land pressures. The region’s electric utility, Dominion Energy, has been straining to keep up with demand. Data centers already consume an estimated 21–24% of Dominion’s Virginia electricity sales, and the utility’s contracted future commitments nearly doubled from ~21 GW to ~40 GW in 2024 – a staggering load mostly driven by hyperscale requirements. This led Dominion to warn in 2022 that new data center connections could face multi-year delays. Indeed, Northern Virginia faces a power crunch: substation and transmission projects are underway but not fast enough to avoid bottlenecks. Some new data centers are waiting in queue for power allocation, stretching timelines.

Land and community factors have also turned against unfettered growth. Loudoun County, VA – nicknamed “Data Center Alley” – removed by-right zoning for data centers in 2025, meaning each project now requires special approval. This policy change, along with growing local opposition in certain areas, has slowed the once-automatic expansion in NoVA. High land costs and power constraints are pushing developers to seek sites in adjacent counties (like Prince William, Culpeper, and Henrico) where policies are still accommodating. Virginia remains the primary nexus of cloud infrastructure in North America, and its fiber connectivity and tax incentives (no sales tax on servers) are still attractive. The pipeline of proposed projects is enormous – thousands of megawatts in various stages – but execution is now uncertain. Recent high-profile projects have been withdrawn or delayed due to local resistance or grid limitations. In short, Northern Virginia’s score suffers not from lack of demand (it has plenty of that), but from growing pains. Its power (3/5) is constrained in the short term, land (3/5) is expensive with stricter zoning, though the pipeline (4/5) remains significant (if approvals and power can be secured). The market is at a crossroads: it must solve infrastructure challenges and community concerns to regain top-tier site readiness. For now, some hyperscalers are hesitant to expand further in NoVA and are hedging with alternative regions.

Silicon Valley, California – Site Readiness Score: 2.1. The Silicon Valley/San Jose area highlights the other extreme: a historically crucial data center location that is largely built-out and constrained today. Its land score (1/5) is the lowest of any major market – real estate costs are exorbitant and suitable parcels are scarce in the Bay Area, with intense competition from other uses. Zoning is also an issue; some cities (like Santa Clara) have started to push back on new data center approvals due to concerns about power use and limited community benefit. The most decisive factor, however, is power (2/5). Parts of Silicon Valley now face an acute power shortage for large new facilities. The local municipal utility in Santa Clara, for example, cannot energize several recently constructed data centers because the grid infrastructure isn’t ready. Two big Santa Clara data centers (totaling nearly 100 MW) have sat empty for years awaiting electricity, as Silicon Valley Power works on a $450 million upgrade that won’t finish until 2028. This has effectively frozen new development in one of the Valley’s key data center hubs. Meanwhile, California’s high electricity prices and mandate for renewable energy make operating costs in Silicon Valley far higher than in markets like Oregon or Arizona.

Silicon Valley’s pipeline (2/5) is minimal going forward – most new West Coast capacity is bypassing the Bay Area in favor of cheaper, power-rich regions. In fact, developers of cutting-edge AI data centers are now siting them in places like Texas, Ohio, or Nevada instead of California. The remaining demand in Silicon Valley tends to be for latency-sensitive deployments (serving financial trading or autonomous vehicles, for instance) that must be near the tech population center. Those projects are often smaller and still face long connection delays. In sum, Silicon Valley is no longer “readiness-friendly” for large-scale builds – it’s capacity constrained and expensive. The region’s innovation legacy and network hubs (like San Francisco’s PAIX/Equinix exchanges) keep some data center activity vital, but for hyperscale site selection today, the Valley ranks at the bottom of our scorecard.

Northern New Jersey (NY Metro) – Score: 2.3. Rounding out the lower end is Northern New Jersey, representative of the greater New York City metro. This market similarly faces high land costs, dense development, and older infrastructure. Power is relatively expensive and, while generally reliable, the permitting of new large substations or transmission lines near urban centers can be arduous. New Jersey had growth spurts in the past (with large multi-tenant campuses in areas like Secaucus and Piscataway), often leveraging incentives. But in recent years, hyperscalers have largely skipped the NY/NJ area for expansion due to cheaper alternatives in Virginia or Ohio. The pipeline is modest – some projects in upstate New York or Pennsylvania aim to serve the Northeast corridor’s demand without the drawbacks of the NYC area. Thus, while Northern NJ remains important for proximity colocation and financial services infrastructure, its site readiness for big new builds is limited. In our table, it scores low on land and pipeline especially, reflecting these challenges.

Conclusion: Insights for Investors and Stakeholders

Our Data Center Site Readiness scorecard underlines a pivotal fact: not all “major” markets are equally equipped to handle the next wave of data center growth. Investors and developers should weigh these criteria in tandem. Some traditionally top markets (like Northern Virginia and Silicon Valley) are hitting capacity constraints or community limits, which elevates the risk or lead time for new projects there. In contrast, emerging hubs with abundant power and land – such as Phoenix, Dallas, Central Washington, and others – are stepping up as the prime locations for hyperscale expansion.

For hyperscale operators, the findings suggest focusing site selection on places with proactive infrastructure investment and welcoming policies. Markets like Phoenix and Dallas that scored highest combine low operational costs with evidence of successful build-outs. They also show momentum: these markets are absorbing new capacity at record rates, a strong indicator that future facilities will find tenants or end-users readily.

Utilities and local governments can draw lessons as well. A common thread among high-ranking markets is coordination between industry and public sector to enable growth. For instance, Microsoft’s approach in Quincy, WA – agreeing to fund grid upgrades and use sustainable cooling in exchange for community support – exemplifies how aligning with local priorities can unlock new capacity. Regions that plan power infrastructure ahead of demand (like Texas adding generation, or Oregon upgrading transmission to Hillsboro) will have a competitive edge in attracting data center investment. By contrast, markets that delay these investments or impose reactive moratoria risk losing projects to more agile regions. As the L.A. Times noted, developers are now shifting billion-dollar data center projects to states like Texas, Nevada, and North Carolina when faced with power delays in California.

Finally, it’s worth noting that site readiness can evolve. Market conditions and technology requirements are fluid. The advent of AI workloads is driving unprecedented power densities (hundreds of MW at a single campus) and even prompting ideas like on-site generation and advanced cooling solutions. Going forward, today’s front-runner markets will need to continuously expand their electrical and land capacity to stay ahead on this scorecard. Meanwhile, currently constrained markets may rebound if they implement new policies (for example, Virginia’s push into outlying counties and grid enhancement could raise NoVA’s score in the future).

For now, data center investors should calibrate their strategies to the realities captured in the scorecard: prioritize power-plentiful, land-rich markets with active development pipelines. These are the locales best positioned to support the digital infrastructure boom without undue delays. By doing so, stakeholders can ensure their projects come online on time and on budget – feeding the insatiable demand for cloud and AI services that is only set to grow in the years ahead.

Sources: 

The analysis above incorporates data and insights from industry reports, local news, and expert commentary, including DC Byte’s Virginia market update, D Magazine’s Dallas industry interview, APM Research’s Phoenix deep dive, and recent coverage of power infrastructure challenges in Silicon Valley, among others.