Which states are best for datacenters?

What makes a state good for a datacenter

Site selectors weigh many of the same factors everywhere, but how much each matters depends on the project. A 500 MW training campus cares most about power and speed to power. A 10 MW edge facility cares about fiber and latency to users. A water-cooled design cares about water stress.

The GridCensus readiness score blends fourteen weighted factors for every candidate site. The largest are:

• Power availability (20%): estimated deliverable capacity, distance to substations, voltage and headroom
• Speed to power (20%): how quickly the market and serving utility can energize new load
• Fiber (12%): nearby fiber providers and internet-exchange proximity
• Energy cost (10%): commercial and industrial electricity rates
• Water (7%), buildability (7%) and hazard (6%)

Smaller weights go to labor, existing datacenter clusters, land, construction cost, gas pipeline access, tax incentives and climate. The full list is on the methodology page. A state average is a summary of thousands of sites; the best site in a low-ranked state can beat the average site in a high-ranked one.

What the September 2026 screen shows

Average readiness score across each state's candidate sites, after the September 17, 2026 rescore:

1. Georgia: 60.4 (2,478 sites)
2. Tennessee: 59.7 (2,190)
3. South Carolina: 59.7 (2,061)
4. Alabama: 57.7 (3,107)
5. Florida: 57.6 (4,344)
6. District of Columbia: 57.0 (96)
7. Delaware: 56.5 (288)
8. Iowa: 56.0 (2,572)
9. South Dakota: 55.9 (1,151)
10. North Dakota: 55.8 (1,020)

Texas is 11th at 55.6 with 6,839 sites. California ranks last of the 52 jurisdictions scored (the 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico) at 44.9, held down mainly by water stress and slow interconnection.

The five Southeast leaders score highest on speed to power, between 71 and 73 out of 100. That partly reflects a modeling choice: GridCensus gives the vertically integrated utilities of the Southeast a high market-structure speed score, and Berkeley Lab's queue data show shorter completed-project waits there than in most organized markets. Treat it as a screening view, not a promise from any utility. The full table is in Top states by datacenter readiness.

Why Virginia and Texas look different from the headlines

Virginia has more existing datacenters in the GridCensus inventory than any other state, yet its candidate sites average 52.3 and rank 35th. Its sites score well on fiber (70.6) and water (87.6) but low on power availability (34.5) and speed to power (43.7). Virginia is inside PJM, which the GridCensus model treats as the slowest market to connect new load, and the screen rewards places where new capacity can still be delivered quickly. An existing cluster is a strength for networking and supply chains, but it also means the grid capacity near it is in high demand.

Texas has the highest average speed-to-power score outside the Southeast (67.6) and strong power availability (45.8). In June 2026 ERCOT reported more than 438,000 MW of large load requests, nearly 89% from datacenters. Two cautions apply. Water stress is high across much of the state (water sub-score 45.8). And since an August 3, 2026 directive from the governor, ERCOT has paused approvals to energize new datacenter and crypto-mining loads of 75 MW or more pending an audit due December 10, 2026. GridCensus's speed score does not yet reflect that pause.

The local layer: moratoria and utility terms

State averages miss two things that often decide a project.

Local moratoria. As of September 2026 the GridCensus moratoria file lists 417 county, city and township datacenter moratoria in force and 32 pending. They cluster in states that are otherwise attractive:

• Michigan: 48 in force
• Ohio: 46
• Georgia: 35
• North Carolina: 32
• Iowa: 25
• Tennessee: 19

A top-ranked state can still contain counties where new datacenters are on hold. Browse them on local moratoria, which also shows the trend by state.

The serving utility. Inside one state, utilities differ in how they treat large loads. Of the 87 utilities GridCensus has rated, 16 are classed as fast to connect large loads, 45 medium and 26 slow. Some publish large-load tariffs with minimum demand charges, long contract terms and collateral requirements; others negotiate. See utility terms.

Water and hazard narrow the field further

Water stress is the factor that most separates the western states. The lowest average water sub-scores are in Nevada (11.4), Arizona (17.2), New Mexico (22.6), Utah (25.2) and California (27.2), based on the World Resources Institute's Aqueduct water-stress index. That does not rule those states out, but it matters most for designs that rely on evaporative cooling.

Hazard scores, built from FEMA's National Risk Index, cut the other way along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Florida's hazard sub-score (43.0) and Texas's (44.2) are among the lower ones, even though both rank well overall.

How to narrow from states to sites

1. Pick the rankings that match the project: readiness, fastest speed to power, shortest queue or lowest water stress.
2. Open a state page from the locations hub to see its counties, site types and top sites.
3. Use Find by size to list sites that can plausibly support your load, with filters for existing interconnection and nearby grid bottlenecks.
4. Run Vet a site on the shortlist for the serving utility, nearby constraints, queue activity and moratoria within 30 miles.

The scores are screening estimates from public data. They are a way to decide where to spend diligence, not a substitute for utility studies, title work or local approvals.