Across the United States, the new generation of hyperscale data centers is starting to rival airports, factories, and even small towns in sheer physical footprint. These campuses stretch for miles, pack in millions of square feet of server space, carry price tags in the tens of billions of dollars…and they’re turning farmland and industrial acreage into some of the hottest real estate on the planet.
It’s hard to wrap your head around just how massive these sites are. Just as an example, Meta’s Richland Parish Data Center in northeast Louisiana, nicknamed “Hyperion,” is slated to occupy approximately 4 million square feet, or 6 square miles. Enough to hold 94 football fields, or 37 Times Squares!! And Hyperion isn’t even the largest.
Below, I’ve included information about some of the biggest projects in the country – both existing campuses and planned/under construction – to perhaps give you a better idea of how much physical space the exploding demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence is going to occupy.
Largest existing U.S. data center campuses
1. Switch TAHOE RENO “Citadel Campus” – Sparks/Tahoe Reno, Nevada
- Size: Planned for up to 7.2 million square feet of data center space on about 2,000 acres. That’s bigger than the entire city of Chicago, and large enough to hold about 100 White Houses.
2. Meta Prineville Data Center Campus – Prineville, Oregon
- Size: An 11‑building campus totaling nearly 4.6 million square feet, Meta’s largest existing U.S. data center by floor area.
3. Switch Core Campus – Las Vegas, Nevada
- Size: Industry overviews describe the Las Vegas Core Campus as exceeding 2 million square feet of built data center space, with expansion plans toward roughly 3.5 million square feet.
4. QTS Atlanta Metro / Atlanta‑1 Campus – Atlanta, Georgia
- Size: Commonly cited around 970,000 square feet, making it one of the largest single enterprise‑grade data centers in the southeastern U.S.
5. Lakeside Technology Center – Chicago, Illinois
- Size: Roughly 1.1 million square feet, widely cited as one of the largest carrier‑hotel data centers in the U.S.
Largest planned or under‑construction U.S. campuses
1. Meta Richland Parish “Hyperion” Data Center – Richland Parish, Louisiana
- Size: Planned floor area of about 4,000,000 square feet on a 3,650‑acre site, which would make it one of the largest buildings in the world by floor area when complete.
- Status: Under construction; announced in December 2024 and now in active build‑out as a multi‑year AI data center campus
2. Atlas Development “Project Sail” – Coweta County, Georgia
- Size: A proposed 13‑building campus with a combined footprint of about 4.9 million square feet across roughly 832 acres, according to local reporting and data center trade coverage.
- Status: Mega‑project announced around New Year’s Eve in Georgia; moving through planning and approvals as a long‑horizon build.
3. Digital Realty “Digital Dulles / Western Lands” – Loudoun County, Virginia
- Size: The Digital Dulles campus on a 424‑acre site near Dulles Airport is planned to create about 7.5 million square feet of new data center space over roughly 15 years.
- Status: Land acquired and entitlements in place; phased construction envisioned as part of Digital Realty’s broader Ashburn/Loudoun footprint.
4. QTS Fayetteville Hyperscale Campus – Fayette County, Georgia - Size: Planned to sit on 600 acres with a building program estimated around 1,500,000 square feet of data center space at full build‑out and 250 MW of capacity.
- Status: Land acquired and publicly identified as a QTS project; still in the planned/early‑development phase.
5. Microsoft “Project Osmium” – West Des Moines, Iowa
- Size: The Project Osmium campus is described as spanning over 1.7 million square feet across five data center buildings when fully built.
- Status: Construction is approaching completion, with recent reports noting that the $1.5‑billion development is finishing and the campus is set to go live.
Worth mentioning: Switch TAHOE RENO extended build‑out – Sparks/Tahoe Reno, Nevada
- Size: Beyond the original 7.2‑million‑square‑foot concept, Switch now markets the broader “TAHOE RENO” ecosystem as having potential for up to 17.4 million square feet of data center space at full development. 17.4 million square feet equals nearly 400 acres, equivalent to roughly 302 football fields!
