After running a campaign centered on Virginia’s energy-affordability crisis, Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger pledged in her victory speech to make sure data center operators and utilities “pay their fair share.”

That promise matters — not just politically, but substantively. Spanberger named one of the toughest challenges facing Virginia’s leaders: how to tackle rising energy bills and the mounting impact of data center growth on local communities.

Nowhere on Earth has a higher concentration of data centers than Virginia. To power the next generation of artificial intelligence, there are already roughly 10 gigawatts of these energy-hungry complexes — or about one-third of the total generating capacity of Virginia as a whole — and demand is surging. That strain is driving up prices for ever

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