We must bring real wisdom to the building of data centers in our communities.
In this moment, the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is driving a corporate building spree in the region our congregations serve.
Already, over 600 “hyperscale” data centers have been built across Virginia and more are proposed for Maryland: massive, loud server warehouses that occupy acres of land and run day and night, making obscene demands on our energy grid and polluting entire communities’ air and water. And too often, the cost of all this infrastructure is borne by us on our energy bills. (See video here from More Perfect Union.)
Neighbors in Virginia and across the country can testify that data centers are often sited in overburdened and underserved Black, brown, and lower-income communities. Since existing laws are generally inadequate to restrict data center development, many of these facilities can get permitted without any requirement to seek community input from those who will be most impacted. And communities that already are being made sick by pollution from clusters of fossil fuel facilities therefore have precisely the kind of energy infrastructure in place that attracts data centers, compounding environmental injustice.
While the prospect of corporate profits from the AI “boom” is imposing one data center proposal after another onto our region, every local community has grassroots power to weigh in on how their land, water, and energy are used.
Data center expansion is driven by AI, but we are driven by something else: our ancient sacred traditions – real human wisdom – about living well in community and caring for each other and for the land and water we share.
Learn & Speak Out In Your Congregation
Invite your congregation to learn more about data centers, to speak out for pending legislation in Maryland and Virginia with downloadable photo petition signs, and to make thoughtful decisions about their own uses of AI. (See snapshots of our emergent faithful response to data centers.)
Is a new or expanded hyperscale data center coming to your community? Your congregation can join with neighbors to bring wise-heartedness to data center debates already underway in Baltimore City, and in Baltimore, Calvert, Charles, Frederick, Montgomery, and Prince George’s counties.
Watch: IPL-DMV’s Robin Lewis speaks to Catholic Climate Covenant – The Growing Impacts of Data Centers on Our Neighbors and God’s Creation
Make More Mindful Use of AI
It’s important to remember that we as human beings and our own wise hearts should be deciding how we use technology. Explore some ways to make choices about how much you engage AI in your daily life.
Require Any Data Centers to be Good Neighbors
Nationwide
Amidst a growing number of proposed state moratorium bills pausing data center development across the country, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced an AI Data Center Moratorium Act in the US Congress in March.
In Maryland
Maryland congregations are coming together through Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA) to join the Maryland Data Center Reform Coalition in speaking out for strong policies that hold data centers to high standards of community input and responsible energy usage.
Our voices are urgently needed: A 2025 report found that data centers are currently costing customers on Maryland’s regional grid over $9 billion in increased energy costs annually.The two dozen tech companies promoting data centers to our legislators through the Maryland Tech Council may be loud, but our wise hearts, the real human wisdom of those most impacted, must prevail.
Listen: State Senator Katie Fry Hester discusses data center policy on the Maryland Energy Talk podcast
In Virginia
Our neighbors in Northern Virginia have been on the front lines as the Commonwealth has become the world’s largest data center market over the past few years, and their struggle holds lessons for all of us. Northern Virginia congregations are working with our partners at Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions (FACS) and Virginia Interfaith Power & Light in supporting legislation to insist that new data centers be better neighbors.
Learn more: Data Center reform legislation in the 2026 session and how each bill fared
Bring Real Wisdom to Data Center Conversations in your Community
Your neighbors are coming together to respond to data center proposals for communities across Maryland, as are communities across the country (see this Data Center Site Fight Guide, a living document from the Data Center Working Group, and RMI’s Community Guide One-Pager).
Baltimore City
In Baltimore City, we’re following the lead of Sacred Parks and Waterways — a grassroots group protesting the pollution and tree removals brought by Johns Hopkins’ proposed Data Science and AI (DSAI) Institute. In addition, a transmission line BGE proposed for Port Covington at the Baltimore Peninsula raised community concern that the infrastructure would not only tear up the streets and raise bills but might also enable data center development there. Outcry from city and state legislators and residents prompted BGE to pause the project on March 4, 2026.
In late March, Council President Zeke Cohen introduced a one-year moratorium on data center development in the Baltimore City Council.
Learn:
Baltimore County
Security Land and Development LP had proposed a data center for Woodlawn, seeking to begin development as soon as summer 2026, until the Baltimore County Council passed a moratorium on data center permits in February that will delay for at least a year.
Watch: Baltimore County Planning Department’s Data Center Study Meeting (March 2026), featuring a number of the most common pro-data center arguments, made by union representatives and a slide presentation by the Maryland Tech Council’s Kelly Schultz
The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, which some landowners describe as an “extension cord” for the data centers in Northern Virginia, would place a 67-mile transmission line across three Maryland counties — Baltimore, Frederick and Carroll, and faces tremendous opposition from impacted farmers.
Connect: Stop Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (StopMPRP)
Calvert County
In March 2025, the Calvert County commissioners adopted a zoning text amendment regulating where data centers are permitted. Records obtained by Informed St Mary’s showed that that same month, County Commission President Earl “Buddy” Hance signed a nondisclosure agreement related to a potential project, and found reference to a pending permit for a “Minut Developers LLC – Data Center” at 1650 Calvert Cliffs Parkway in Lusby.
In late February 2026, Amazon Web Services posted a job ad on LinkedIn seeking a “senior construction manager” for building a data center in Lusby, which was widely shared on social media, driving concern among residents that new data centers adjacent to the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant and 2.5 miles north of Southern Middle School were already a done deal.
In late March, Amazon Web Services shared a concept plan at a community meeting, which envisions up to eight data centers to the south and west area of the nuclear plant. The property is already zoned for heavy industry use, and would not need to be rezoned for the project to proceed.
Separately, real estate firm Natelli Holdings is proposing a data center on 133 acres of County land south of the potential AWS campus, at 10475, 10485, & 10495 Solomons Island Road.
The County Council now plans to hold hearings considering a two-year data center moratorium.
Connect: Join Stop Data Centers in Calvert Facebook Group
Speak out: Sign grassroots petitions from Calvert County residents opposing data centers on Care 2 and Change.org. Share your concerns about data centers on this survey from Keep Calvert County.
Diana Mendez-Smith, Ethan Cox, and neighbors protest proposed data centers in Calvert County in April 2026. (Photo: Jeff Dixon)
Carroll County
The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, which some landowners describe as an “extension cord” for the data centers in Northern Virginia, would place a 67-mile transmission line across three Maryland counties — Baltimore, Frederick and Carroll, and faces tremendous opposition from impacted farmers.
Connect: Stop Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (StopMPRP)
Charles County
On Feb. 2, 2026, TeraWulf Inc. announced it had acquired the Morgantown Generating Station in Newberg. (Several groups have called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject the purchase, though, because TeraWulf failed to disclose Google’s 14% ownership stake in the company.) While no specific development plans have been announced, TeraWulf develops and operates data centers and the site includes about 250 acres and the capacity for additional energy generation, raising the possibility that a data center could co-locate with the power plant.
Meanwhile, a proposed zoning text amendment related to data centers is under review by the Planning Commission, which will make a recommendation to the county commissioners.
On March 26th, advocates rallied in Annapolis to oppose Governor Moore’s administration, and the Maryland Department of the Environment expediting a massive gas-burning power plant to power anticipated Charles County data centers. (Watch here.)
Connect: Charles County Against Data Centers is a grassroots coalition of community groups calling for a moratorium. Follow on Facebook.
Frederick County
In late December 2025, against the Planning Commission’s recommendations and public outcry, the County Council voted to allow for data center expansion beyond the original EastAlco Data Center Complex, including by rezoning land currently designated as Priority Preservation Areas and Rural Legacy Areas.
The Frederick County Data Center Referendum Committee, led by Envision Frederick, collected signatures for a referendum on the ballot that “would give residents the opportunity to weigh in before additional expansion occurs and before the state has completed comprehensive studies on the environmental, energy, and economic impacts of data centers.”
In March 2026, a Frederick County official told a Monocacy River advisory commission to cancel a public discussion about data center impacts on waterways which had been planned for April.
On April 3rd, the Board of Elections validated the Data Center referendum to be placed on the ballot, with 21,029 validated signatures.
“I expect most county residents don’t fully appreciate yet what sort of money developers and data center interests are going to dump into an all out campaign to convince voters here that they are the best thing that ever happened to Frederick County,” writes community activist Kai Hagen. “It will … include highly polished and slick mailers to all of us. It will be a massively expensive and one-sided messaging blitz unlike anything we’ve ever experienced here.
“And the opposing point of view, that says we should let the current data centers in the hopper get substantially built out, and the real impacts be properly evaluated before approving additional expansion … will have to come from a broad and diverse collection of people and organizations that will not have even a tiny fraction of money that will be spent by the data center interests.
“This a David vs. Goliath fight ahead, folks. But some good news is that, across the country … the Davids have been winning these fights against the Goliaths. And we can win, too.”
Connect:
- Join the conversation on the Frederick County Data Center Referendum Committee group on Facebook.
- Stop Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (StopMPRP)
- The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, which some landowners describe as an “extension cord” for the data centers in Northern Virginia, would place a 67-mile transmission line across three Maryland counties — Baltimore, Frederick and Carroll, and faces tremendous opposition from impacted farmers.
Collecting referendum signatures at Beyond Comics in Frederick.
Montgomery County
Since the summer of August 2024, Terra Innovations has been seeking to develop a data center in Dickerson on the site of a former coal-fired power plant, with Sugarloaf Citizens Association and Montgomery County Countryside Alliance tracking closely.
County Executive Marc Elrich issued draft data center recommendations in mid-January, to which the county’s own Climate, Energy, and Air Quality Advisory Committee has responded, as has the Montgomery County Climate Coalition, which is calling for “an immediate moratorium on permitting for data centers while these policies are discussed and adopted in a transparent process with stakeholders.”
Council members have introduced a year-long task force which did not get out of committee, and a zoning measure which the council is likely to take up over the summer. On March 13th, all three major candidates for county executive pledged to support only data centers powered by 100% clean energy, and Councilmember Will Jawando proposed a two-year moratorium.
Watch:
- The Climate Mobilization Webinar with Nature Forward
- IPL-DMV’s Director Joelle Novey, of Silver Spring, at the County Executive’s forum and at the 100% clean energy pledge rally
- IPL-DMV’s Ignatian Volunteer, John Hisle of Chevy Chase, testifies at Montgomery County Council in support of a task force
From: Baltimore Banner: Montgomery County executive eyes 6-month data center moratorium, by Jack Hogan 2/4/26 (photo: Valerie Plesch)
Prince George's County
At least two data centers are proposed, one in Landover and one at the former Six Flags site. A County Council resolution in February 2025 established a Data Center Task Force, and a moratorium on data center permits awaiting the task force’s report. Just before the report was released in late 2025, 30 county organizations and community leaders sent the council a letter, asking for “a comprehensive, independent, science-based review must be undertaken to evaluate all viable scenarios for data center development” and requesting that the moratorium be extended.
Read:
Report from Data Center Task Force – “Qualified Data Centers in Prince George’s County”
Counter report from CEEJH & NAACP – The People’s Report: A Gap Analysis of Data Center Infrastructure in Prince George’s County, Maryland
Data centers spark ‘fight for the soul’ of a mostly Black MD county
Data centers are being proposed rapidly in our region, and while some sites are tracking the known proposals, some developers begin projects under the radar. If you know of a data center proposal in your area, let us know!
Email ethan@ipldmv.org
