# US Data Center Directory, release 2026-09-16

Frozen copy of the Malachi.Energy data center dataset as published at
https://malachi.energy/data-centers. These files will not change. The moving URLs on
the site always serve the newest version; cite this directory when the numbers
need to stay put.

- Dataset version: 2026-09-16 (last data change)
- Snapshot taken: 2026-09-16
- Methodology version: 3
- First published: 2026-03-09
- Release page: https://malachi.energy/data-centers/releases/2026-09-16
- Latest release (moves): https://malachi.energy/data-centers/releases/latest/
- Maintainer: Malachi Rein, LEED AP BD+C, https://malachi.energy/about

## What is in this release

| Count | Value |
|---|---:|
| Tracked mega projects | 54 |
| Planned capacity, MW | 109,198 |
| Announced investment, USD billions (all bases) | 1,206.2 |
| OSM-verified facilities | 1,771 |
| Jurisdictions covered | 48 |
| Estimated US facilities (Baxtel national count) | 5,207 |

## Files

| File | Rows | License | Description |
|---|---:|---|---|
| mega-projects.csv | 54 | Mega project tally and state estimates, free for personal, educational, and editorial use with attribution to Malachi.Energy | Tracked US data center mega projects with the basis and confidence of every figure. One row per project, sorted by planned capacity. |
| mega-projects.json |  | Mega project tally and state estimates, free for personal, educational, and editorial use with attribution to Malachi.Energy | The same projects as mega-projects.csv in camelCase, with the project description, the source as an object, national totals split by basis, and the basis dictionary inline. |
| states.csv | 48 | Mega project tally and state estimates, free for personal, educational, and editorial use with attribution to Malachi.Energy | Verified and estimated facility counts plus mega project totals for every covered jurisdiction, sorted by verified count. |
| facilities.csv | 1,771 | OSM-verified facility layer, ODbL 1.0 | Every OSM-verified facility in the directory, all jurisdictions in one file. The live site serves this layer per state at /data-centers/<state>/facilities.csv. |
| manifest.json | | | Machine-readable version of this README: counts, files, SHA-256 hashes, changelog. |
| checksums.sha256 | | | SHA-256 of every other file. Verify with `sha256sum -c checksums.sha256`. |
| CITATION.bib | | | BibTeX entry for this release. |
| LICENSE.txt | | | Which license covers which file. |

## Data dictionary

### mega-projects.csv

| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| id | Stable slug; also the last segment of the project page URL. |
| name | Campus or project name as the developer uses it. |
| developer | Company building or operating the campus. |
| location | City or county and state, as reported. |
| state | Two-letter USPS abbreviation. |
| capacity_mw | Planned power capacity in megawatts. Planned, not delivered. |
| capacity_basis | What the capacity figure rests on. One of: disclosed, filing, reported, estimated. |
| investment_usd_billions | Announced investment in USD billions. |
| investment_basis | What the investment figure measures. One of: campus-capex, first-phase-capex, bond-authorization, power-plant-capex, program-commitment, press-reported, analyst-estimate. |
| is_estimate | true when capacity is a Malachi.Energy estimate or investment is a third-party analyst estimate. |
| confidence | high when both figures come from the developer or a filing and the site has physical progress or firm contracts; medium when one figure is reported, estimated, or scoped differently than the campus; low when proposed without permits or capacity is an estimate. |
| included_in_aggregate | Whether the row counts toward the headline totals. Currently true for every project. |
| comparable_campus_investment | true when the investment basis is developer-stated campus or first-phase cost, the only bases that measure the same thing. |
| status | operational (first phase serves load), under-construction, announced, or proposed. |
| target_year | Developer-stated year for first or full operation. Empty when none is public. |
| lat | Latitude, WGS84. Precision varies by source; one-decimal values locate a county, not a site. |
| lon | Longitude, WGS84. |
| location_basis | How precisely the coordinate locates the campus. One of: site, address, city-centroid, county-centroid. Distance facts count only site and address rows. |
| source_label | Publisher of the primary public source for the two figures. |
| source_url | URL of that source. |
| source_date | Evidence date of the source, ISO, month precision allowed. |
| last_verified_at | Dataset version date. Every project is re-checked against its source at each refresh. |
| url | Project page on malachi.energy. |

### mega-projects.json

The same projects as mega-projects.csv in camelCase, with the project description, the source as an object, national totals split by basis, and the basis dictionary inline.

### states.csv

| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| state | Jurisdiction name. |
| abbr | Two-letter USPS abbreviation. |
| osm_verified | Facilities tagged as data centers in OpenStreetMap with a mapped location in this jurisdiction. |
| estimated_total | Estimated facility count: Baxtel state count where Baxtel publishes one, otherwise osm_verified scaled so all jurisdictions sum to the Baxtel national total. |
| mega_project_count | Tracked mega projects in the jurisdiction. |
| mega_capacity_mw | Sum of planned capacity across those projects, megawatts. |
| mega_investment_usd_billions | Sum of announced investment across those projects, all bases mixed. |
| top_operator | Operator with the most OSM-verified facilities in the jurisdiction. |
| top_hub | City with the most OSM-verified facilities in the jurisdiction. |
| url | State page on malachi.energy. |

### facilities.csv

| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| name | Facility name from OpenStreetMap, empty when untagged. |
| operator | Operator from OpenStreetMap, empty when untagged. |
| city | City from the OSM address tags or reverse geocode. |
| state | Two-letter USPS abbreviation, assigned by point-in-polygon against Census boundaries. |
| address | Street address when tagged. |
| postcode | Postal code when tagged. |
| lat | Latitude, WGS84. Centroid for building outlines. |
| lon | Longitude, WGS84. |
| website | Website when tagged. |
| osm_type | node, way, or relation. |
| osm_id | OpenStreetMap element id. |
| osm_url | Link to the element on openstreetmap.org. |

## Method (version 3)

Every mega project carries a location basis (site, address, city centroid, or county centroid). Transmission proximity is derived as the geodesic distance from each project coordinate to the nearest HIFLD transmission line of 230 kV or higher, computed in PostGIS on geography and committed as JSON at refresh time; only site- and address-located projects count toward the within-5-miles fact, and every derived sentence names the layer vintage and its denominator.

Full method, reconciliation table, and investment split: https://malachi.energy/data-centers#methodology

## Changes in this version

Location basis for every mega project, re-researched site coordinates where a public source identifies the campus, and the first derived spatial facts: distance from each site-located project to the nearest 230 kV or higher transmission line.

- Added location_basis to the mega project exports: site (campus footprint identified), address (public address, geocoded), city-centroid, or county-centroid. The JSON export also carries locationSource where the location comes from a different public source than the figures.
- Re-researched campus coordinates. Projects upgraded to site or address carry a new coordinate and a dated location source; centroid projects keep their previous coordinate.
- Added transmission proximity, derived in PostGIS from the HIFLD Electric Power Transmission Lines layer (data current to 2023-09-05) filtered to 230 kV and above: nearest line distance, voltage, and owner per project, and the count of site-located projects within 5 miles. The derived values live in derived-facts.json with their own measurement date and are not part of the frozen exports in this release.
- Only site- and address-located projects count toward any distance fact; centroid coordinates can sit several miles from the parcel, so the prose states the site-located denominator and excludes the rest.
- Methodology version 3.

## Cite

Rein, Malachi (2026). US Data Center Directory, dataset version 2026-09-16. Malachi.Energy. https://malachi.energy/data-centers/releases/2026-09-16

```bibtex
@misc{malachienergy_data_centers_2026_09_16,
  author = {Rein, Malachi},
  title = {US Data Center Directory},
  howpublished = {Malachi.Energy},
  year = {2026},
  version = {2026-09-16},
  note = {Dataset version 2026-09-16. Facility layer ODbL 1.0 (OpenStreetMap contributors); compilation free with attribution.},
  url = {https://malachi.energy/data-centers/releases/2026-09-16}
}
```

## Licenses

See LICENSE.txt. Facility layer: Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. Compilation: Mega project tally and state estimates, free for personal, educational, and editorial use with attribution to Malachi.Energy.