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Amid Shifting Regional Data Center Policies, Iron Mountain and DC Blox Both Expand in Virginia’s Henrico County

The dynamic landscape of data center developments in Maryland and Virginia exemplify the intricate balance between fostering technological growth and addressing community and environmental concerns. Data center developers in this region find themselves both in the crosshairs of groups worried about the environment and other groups looking to drive economic growth. In some cases, the […]

The dynamic landscape of data center developments in Maryland and Virginia exemplify the intricate balance between fostering technological growth and addressing community and environmental concerns.

Data center developers in this region find themselves both in the crosshairs of groups worried about the environment and other groups looking to drive economic growth. In some cases, the groups are different components of the same organizations, such as local governments. For data center development, meeting the needs of these competing interests often means walking a none-too-stable tightrope.

Rapid Government Action Encourages Growth

In May 2024, Maryland demonstrated its commitment to attracting data center investments by enacting the Critical Infrastructure Streamlining Act.

This legislation provides a clear framework for the use of emergency backup power generation, addressing previous regulatory challenges that a few months earlier had hindered projects like Aligned Data Centers’ proposed 264-megawatt campus in Frederick County, causing Aligned to pull out of the project. However, just days after the Act was signed by the governor, Aligned reiterated its plans to move forward with development in Maryland. 

With the Quantum Loop and the related data center development making Frederick County a focal point for a balanced approach, the industry is paying careful attention to the pace of development and the relations between developers, communities and the government.

In September of 2024, Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater revealed draft legislation that would potentially restrict where in the county data centers could be built. The legislation was based on information found in the Frederick County Data Centers Workgroup’s final report. Those bills would update existing regulations and create a floating zone for Critical Digital Infrastructure and place specific requirements on siting data centers.

Statewide, a cautious approach to environmental and community impacts statewide has been deemed important. In January 2025, legislators introduced SB116,  a bill mandating a comprehensive study on the economic, environmental, and energy consequences of data center development. This initiative aims to evaluate how these facilities affect natural resources, power demands, and local finances, ensuring that growth aligns with sustainability goals.

The synopsis of the bill makes the goals quite clear, but it doesn’t require the final report to be delivered until September 2026: 

“Requiring the Department of the Environment, the Maryland Energy Administration, and the University of Maryland School of Business, in coordination with the Department of Legislative Services, to conduct an analysis of the likely environmental, energy, and economic impacts of data center development in the State; and requiring the Department of Legislative Services to coordinate preparation of the final report to be submitted to the Governor and the General Assembly by September 1, 2026.”

This newly proposed legislation, which would apply statewide, has the potential to restrict data center locations, require extensive environmental assessments, and set stringent standards for emissions and fuel storage, all of which are yet undefined.

Whether these standards would supplant local efforts or be applied on top of any local regulation is yet unidentified. But for the long-term, these measures reflect a desire to balance economic benefits with the preservation of community character and environmental health.  And statewide legislation does have the benefit of preventing a patchwork of local legislation which could set varying standards and regulations.

As Goes Virginia, So Goes the Industry

Meanwhile, neighboring Virginia, especially northern Virginia, is home to a significant concentration of data centers and continues to attract substantial investments, with 117 data centers already in an advanced approval stage. Loudoun County, the heart of Data Center Alley, has consistently been looking at different ways to get control of data center development without stopping the investment in the county by data center developers and the ongoing tax revenues that the county and its residents benefit from.

Even with all of this data center growth and almost weekly announcements of new data center development, Virginia faces mounting challenges related to the rapid expansion of data centers. The state legislature is currently deliberating the extension of tax incentives for these facilities, with debates focusing on the need for increased transparency, environmental safeguards, and a reevaluation of the economic benefits provided by such incentives. As of yet, most of the significant attempts to control data center proliferation are at the county level.

Fairfax County, for instance, has implemented stricter zoning regulations, including increased setbacks from residential areas and requirements for noise and environmental impact studies. These policies aim to mitigate the adverse effects of data centers on local communities while accommodating technological advancement and potential tax revenue benefits.

Iron Mountain in Henrico County

In February 2025, Iron Mountain announced plans to build a new data center campus in Virginia’s Henrico County, highlighting the region’s ongoing appeal to major industry players.

The company has acquired a 66-acre site at 6110 Technology Creek Drive within the White Oak Technology Park, a business park spanning over 2,200 acres dedicated to technology and data center developments. The planned campus will encompass four data center buildings, totaling more than 1 million square feet, with an expected capacity exceeding 200 megawatts. This development represents an investment exceeding $1 billion and is anticipated to generate substantial tax revenue for Henrico County.

Henrico County’s White Oak Technology Park is already home to data centers operated by companies such as QTS Data Centers and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Iron Mountain’s decision to establish its campus in this location underscores the area’s robust infrastructure and strategic importance in the data center sector.

Its significant expansion in Virginia aligns with Iron Mountain’s commitment to investing in high-growth markets and delivering exceptional solutions for its customers. The company’s global data center footprint now includes over 25 facilities across three continents, all powered by 100% renewable energy.

In wake of the project’s announcement, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin certainly sounds like a data center supporter, saying:

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Amid Shifting Regional Data Center Policies, Iron Mountain and DC Blox Both Expand in Virginia’s Henrico County

The dynamic landscape of data center developments in Maryland and Virginia exemplify the intricate balance between fostering technological growth and addressing community and environmental concerns. Data center developers in this region find themselves both in the crosshairs of groups worried about the environment and other groups looking to drive economic growth. In some cases, the groups are different components of the same organizations, such as local governments. For data center development, meeting the needs of these competing interests often means walking a none-too-stable tightrope. Rapid Government Action Encourages Growth In May 2024, Maryland demonstrated its commitment to attracting data center investments by enacting the Critical Infrastructure Streamlining Act. This legislation provides a clear framework for the use of emergency backup power generation, addressing previous regulatory challenges that a few months earlier had hindered projects like Aligned Data Centers’ proposed 264-megawatt campus in Frederick County, causing Aligned to pull out of the project. However, just days after the Act was signed by the governor, Aligned reiterated its plans to move forward with development in Maryland.  With the Quantum Loop and the related data center development making Frederick County a focal point for a balanced approach, the industry is paying careful attention to the pace of development and the relations between developers, communities and the government. In September of 2024, Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater revealed draft legislation that would potentially restrict where in the county data centers could be built. The legislation was based on information found in the Frederick County Data Centers Workgroup’s final report. Those bills would update existing regulations and create a floating zone for Critical Digital Infrastructure and place specific requirements on siting data centers. Statewide, a cautious approach to environmental and community impacts statewide has been deemed important. In January 2025, legislators introduced SB116,  a bill

Read More »

New Reports Show How AI, Power, and Investment Trends Are Reshaping the Data Center Landscape

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Microsoft will invest $80B in AI data centers in fiscal 2025

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John Deere unveils more autonomous farm machines to address skill labor shortage

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Self-driving tractors might be the path to self-driving cars. John Deere has revealed a new line of autonomous machines and tech across agriculture, construction and commercial landscaping. The Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has been in business for 187 years, yet it’s been a regular as a non-tech company showing off technology at the big tech trade show in Las Vegas and is back at CES 2025 with more autonomous tractors and other vehicles. This is not something we usually cover, but John Deere has a lot of data that is interesting in the big picture of tech. The message from the company is that there aren’t enough skilled farm laborers to do the work that its customers need. It’s been a challenge for most of the last two decades, said Jahmy Hindman, CTO at John Deere, in a briefing. Much of the tech will come this fall and after that. He noted that the average farmer in the U.S. is over 58 and works 12 to 18 hours a day to grow food for us. And he said the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates there are roughly 2.4 million farm jobs that need to be filled annually; and the agricultural work force continues to shrink. (This is my hint to the anti-immigration crowd). John Deere’s autonomous 9RX Tractor. Farmers can oversee it using an app. While each of these industries experiences their own set of challenges, a commonality across all is skilled labor availability. In construction, about 80% percent of contractors struggle to find skilled labor. And in commercial landscaping, 86% of landscaping business owners can’t find labor to fill open positions, he said. “They have to figure out how to do

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2025 playbook for enterprise AI success, from agents to evals

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More 2025 is poised to be a pivotal year for enterprise AI. The past year has seen rapid innovation, and this year will see the same. This has made it more critical than ever to revisit your AI strategy to stay competitive and create value for your customers. From scaling AI agents to optimizing costs, here are the five critical areas enterprises should prioritize for their AI strategy this year. 1. Agents: the next generation of automation AI agents are no longer theoretical. In 2025, they’re indispensable tools for enterprises looking to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions. Unlike traditional software, agents powered by large language models (LLMs) can make nuanced decisions, navigate complex multi-step tasks, and integrate seamlessly with tools and APIs. At the start of 2024, agents were not ready for prime time, making frustrating mistakes like hallucinating URLs. They started getting better as frontier large language models themselves improved. “Let me put it this way,” said Sam Witteveen, cofounder of Red Dragon, a company that develops agents for companies, and that recently reviewed the 48 agents it built last year. “Interestingly, the ones that we built at the start of the year, a lot of those worked way better at the end of the year just because the models got better.” Witteveen shared this in the video podcast we filmed to discuss these five big trends in detail. Models are getting better and hallucinating less, and they’re also being trained to do agentic tasks. Another feature that the model providers are researching is a way to use the LLM as a judge, and as models get cheaper (something we’ll cover below), companies can use three or more models to

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OpenAI’s red teaming innovations define new essentials for security leaders in the AI era

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI has taken a more aggressive approach to red teaming than its AI competitors, demonstrating its security teams’ advanced capabilities in two areas: multi-step reinforcement and external red teaming. OpenAI recently released two papers that set a new competitive standard for improving the quality, reliability and safety of AI models in these two techniques and more. The first paper, “OpenAI’s Approach to External Red Teaming for AI Models and Systems,” reports that specialized teams outside the company have proven effective in uncovering vulnerabilities that might otherwise have made it into a released model because in-house testing techniques may have missed them. In the second paper, “Diverse and Effective Red Teaming with Auto-Generated Rewards and Multi-Step Reinforcement Learning,” OpenAI introduces an automated framework that relies on iterative reinforcement learning to generate a broad spectrum of novel, wide-ranging attacks. Going all-in on red teaming pays practical, competitive dividends It’s encouraging to see competitive intensity in red teaming growing among AI companies. When Anthropic released its AI red team guidelines in June of last year, it joined AI providers including Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and even the U.S.’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which all had released red teaming frameworks. Investing heavily in red teaming yields tangible benefits for security leaders in any organization. OpenAI’s paper on external red teaming provides a detailed analysis of how the company strives to create specialized external teams that include cybersecurity and subject matter experts. The goal is to see if knowledgeable external teams can defeat models’ security perimeters and find gaps in their security, biases and controls that prompt-based testing couldn’t find. What makes OpenAI’s recent papers noteworthy is how well they define using human-in-the-middle

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Introducing Gemma 3

For a deeper dive into the technical details behind these capabilities, as well as a comprehensive overview of our approach to responsible development, refer to

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