Iowa

The largest footprint in Iowa belongs to Meta Platforms, Inc., behind 8 tracked facilities. Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Apple Inc. round out the most active operators in the state. Many of these sites are filed under shell or project names rather than the parent's — our operator column resolves them back to the real corporate parent wherever the chain is documented.

Geographically, the buildout clusters: Polk County leads Iowa with 15 facilities and a composite risk score of 43/100. Pottawattamie County and Dallas County follow. Our county risk score weights project exposure (40%), power demand (30%), water draw (15%), and land footprint (15%); the full breakdown is shown on each county page.

Iowa is not done growing. 1 facility is in the pipeline — proposed, permitted, or under construction — which is where residents still have a say at zoning hearings and in rate cases. Each pending project is a decision about land, water, electricity prices, and tax revenue that hasn't been finalized.

We also surface the accountability trail: 4 state bills mentioning data centers and 6 recent news items are tracked for Iowa below, pulled from LegiScan and GDELT and refreshed automatically. Legislation is linked to the counties and operators it names; news is classified by community sentiment.