Metro Atlanta’s data center fervor that accelerated to unprecedented levels a few years ago has not lost any steam entering 2025.
Preliminary plans for a sprawling nine-building data center campus across 317 acres in Newton County, roughly an hour east of Atlanta, were revealed Thursday in a Development of Regional Impact filing. The $5 billion project north of I-20 and east of Ga. 11 near Covington is expected to span nearly 2.6 million square feet, roughly 50% larger than the floor space inside the Mall of Georgia.
Proposed by a subsidiary of Atlanta-based developer TPA Group, the project is called the Newton County Technology Park and is poised to join a fast-developing corridor along I-20 in the area of Covington and Social Circle around the Stanton Springs Industrial Park and Rivian’s proposed $5 billion electric vehicle factory. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, operates a huge data center in Stanton Springs, just south of I-20.
TPA Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thursday’s filing, which prompts an infrastructure study because of the size of the development proposal, includes scant details on other project specifics.
The site lies within a 453-acre parcel that is zoned for commercial use, but it will need to be rezoned to industrial as part of the data center proposal. The developer estimates the project could be completed by 2031.
Data centers have become big business across the U.S., with metro Atlanta emerging as a hotbed for the fast-growing industry. The high-tech projects are effectively gigantic warehouses that store computer servers that power the internet, cloud services and artificial intelligence.
Georgia and many county and municipal governments have offered lucrative tax breaks to build here. Last year, the Georgia General Assembly passed legislation that would have revoked a lucrative tax break for data centers, but after aggressive industry lobbying efforts, Gov. Brian Kemp vetoed the bill to keep the incentives in place.
Many communities have seen pushback to the proposals because of the mass amounts of power and water needed to operate and cool the facilities. They also produce relatively few jobs compared to the tax savings dangled before companies to incentivize construction.
By the middle of 2024, data center construction had increased 76% in the Atlanta market compared to the same time last year, the most among North America’s eight data center primary markets, according to real estate services firm CBRE. A January report by the U.S. Census found more than 40% of data center employees work in Georgia and four other states.
Data centers require vast amount of electricity to function, which can strain power grids. The power demands for the Newton County Technology Park were not disclosed, but other similar-sized data centers have capacities that eclipse hundreds of megawatts.
Proponents say the rapid increase in data center development is a needed investment in critical tech infrastructure, which powers more aspects of daily life with each passing year.
Amazon Web Services announced earlier in January it plans to invest $11 billion in data center expansion projects in Butts and Douglas counties. December also saw massive data center proposals for Coweta County and south Fulton County.
South Fulton County alone saw seven gigantic server farms proposed during all of 2024.
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