At the corner of East 40th Street and Chester Avenue in Cleveland sits a small, quiet brick building that blends in with many others Downtown.
But, there's a data center in that building. This data center is not new, and it's not alone.
There are nearly 40 data centers throughout Northeast Ohio, and more projects are potentially on the horizon.
"We've had data centers generally for a very long time," said Jonathan Steirer, interim director of Case Western Reserve University’s Great Lakes Energy Institute. "Anything that's been digital, the internet, the files being moved to the cloud, that cloud requires data centers. So, it's not necessarily a new problem."
What is new, Steirer said, is the challenge posed by AI data centers. Large AI data centers are called hyperscalers and can consume as much power as a small city.
"Because of the limitations of our grid, that is not always a given," Steirer said. "So [data centers are] being located near gas lines, pipelines for easy access to natural gas to power on-site generation."
Data center developers typically look for areas with reliable access to water and electric resources and plenty of land to build on. While urban areas may not always measure up, Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, an advocacy group for the industry, said parts of Ohio fit the bill.
"It offers key infrastructure, both on the energy side and the fiber side," he said, "as well as technology workforce, so that construction, building trade, skilled trade workforce that's able to build these facilities as well, as just increasing focus on becoming a technology hub of the Midwest."
As the demand for data centers increases, energy consumption remains one of the biggest public concerns, Steirer said, especially when it comes to the capacity of the grid and increased power costs for ratepayers.
"Beyond just generation and grid management and grid stability and the ability and capacity of our grid to accept these really demanding assets," Steirer said. " So some of that does relate to things like thermal properties of materials used in a data center — so more efficient cooling — which end sup being one of the biggest energy demands of a data center."
Growth of the data center sector could stabilize energy rates down the line, Diorio said.
"What we're actually seeing is that higher load-growth can actually help put downward pressure on rates," he said. "When you have larger users on the system, you're able to spread those fixed costs out over those larger users, and it helps put downward pressure on rates for all."
Even so, concerns about the grid remain. This, paired with concerns about environmental impacts, is affecting development across the region.
Northeast Ohio data center developments hit stumbling blocks
City officials in Norton rejected plans for a data center late last year after being unconvinced of what developers presented as a minimal effect on the community. A project proposing to build a data center on 100 acres of farm land in Perry Township in Stark County is on pause as developers work to meet outstanding conditions with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the regional chamber of commerce and local utilities. And in Lordstown, council members issued a six-month moratorium on a data center project to address a range of issues, including impact on the grid, noise pollution and water consumption.
Guy Coviello, the president and CEO of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, offered to bring in third-party experts to address the community's growing questions and concern related to the Lordstown project.
"We don't want to be supporting one project that might hurt businesses elsewhere," Coviello said. "We also want to make sure that our communities are healthy in terms of growing the tax base and having the proper utilities and infrastructure and everything."
Data centers can use large amounts of water, depending on the type of cooling system they have. But in places like Lordstown, this water usage could be a benefit.
The village's water infrastructure was built to support once-thriving automotive and steel factories that have since shuttered, leaving the village with water capacity than is needed. Greater consumption from a larger utility could help stabilize water raters, Coviello said.
"Unlike other communities around the country where they struggle to have enough water, we have an overabundance, and so I think there's a potential positive outcome there for us," he said.
Mitigating environmental impact
Data center developers tapping into plentiful water systems could be a potential solution according to Helena Volzer, senior source water policy manager with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. But since the largest AI data centers can consume as much as 5 million gallons of water daily, threats to freshwater resources remain.
"We already have existing groundwater conflicts in places like Southwest Michigan, which has seen conflicts between homeowners, agriculture and developers over groundwater," Volzer said. "There's real potential here if we're not making siting decisions .... with our groundwater resources in line in an informed way to exacerbate these kinds of conflicts."
Freshwater resources in the Great Lakes region are already limited, Volzer said. The concern now is ensuring that demand for water from industries like data centers, agriculture and minerals mining don't exceed supply in the Great Lakes and its watershed.
When it comes to water disposal the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is considering a permit to allow data centers to discharge potentially contaminated cooling water directly into lakes, rivers and streams, despite a longstanding international agreement protecting the Great Lakes watershed.
Regional studies, like the Central Ohio Regional Water Study published by the Ohio EPA in March, can help local officials and stakeholders better understand the supply and demand needs of AI data centers before development begins and resources are called into question, Volzer said.
"There are certain policy changes and solutions that we recommend that should be taken now to ask the right questions so we can plan for a sustainable supply of water," she said, "and so that we can cite data centers or whatever the large water using industry is in a way that's sustainable and doesn't threaten our groundwater and surface water resources."
Data center developers should work to minimize the impacts they can have on the communities they build in, Volzer said.
Toward sustainability
Members of the data center sector would agree, Diorio said, and have already begun to take steps to do so.
"As an industry, we'll continue to lean in and be responsible neighbors in the communities where we locate, but also responsive partners in those communities," he said. "[We will] work, with local leaders, with infrastructure providers and also engage with the public to help to help them understand the project better and ensure that it continues to meet the economic development goals of that community."
Community benefit agreements could be a part of this work Volzer said, to outline specific measures local data centers will take to reduce and prevent community harm.
Sustainable options like wind and solar don't currently provide enough reliable energy output to meet the data centers' needs, Steirer said, but emerging technology, like the use of hydrogen or nuclear energy, could become viable solutions down the line.
But amid the ongoing drive across Ohio to build new data centers, there seems to be some agreement that sustainability is an essential step in the path forward.
