They keep the digital world running smoothly, supporting everything from online learning and healthcare to banking and streaming entertainment.

These facilities create well-paying jobs in construction, operations, and technology, as well as opportunities with new local vendors and service providers that become attracted to the region due to the presence of these facilities.

Businesses want to be near reliable digital infrastructure, so data centers make a region more appealing for growth. This can help bring in technology companies, startups, and firms from other industries.

They generate significant tax revenue that helps support schools, public safety, and community services.

Yes, data centers are designed with strict safety, security, and environmental standards. They are quiet neighbors with minimal traffic and activity compared to large facilities in other business sectors.

Modern data centers use advanced technology to reduce energy and water use, often setting industry standards for efficiency. Many also invest in renewable energy, sustainability programs, and utility partnerships.

Aligned’s data centers are designed to be quiet, unobtrusive neighbors. On a typical day, our operations produce a sound similar to normal conversation and just below a household air conditioner. Our chillers and backup power generation equipment utilize critical-grade silencing technology and backup power generation equipment is housed in acoustically treated enclosures to trap sound at the source. We prioritize the community’s comfort by limiting backup equipment use to essential maintenance and rare emergencies. By incorporating wide site setbacks and defined ‘quiet hours’ for construction, we ensure our work never disrupts your daily life. Every Aligned project is managed under a strict noise-mitigation plan that ensures we remain compliant local acoustic limits.

There is a misconception that data centers drive up power bills. In reality, U.S. power generation has been flat for 20 years, and the grid has suffered from a lack of investment. Several recent studies show that large load users actually act as reliable anchor customers that help distribute the fixed costs of the grid, helping to alleviate some of those pricing pressures. But data centers are also paying their fair share. For example, Aligned has financed our own substations and contributed to transmission costs. In Hillsboro, we even funded a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to help the local utility stabilize the grid for everyone; this did not impact ratepayers.

The idea that data centers consume a lot of water is rooted in an older generation of facilities that relied on evaporative cooling. Aligned uses an air-cooled heat rejection system combined with a closed loop system that recycles pure deionized (DI) water repeatedly in a sealed environment. This design requires water only for the initial closed-loop cooling system fill and subsequent maintenance. Following this, water consumption is limited only to essential non-industrial uses, such as restrooms and general amenities. So, the water Aligned facilities draw is primarily for domestic, everyday use by our onsite employees. To put this in perspective, the Mayor of Northlake, IL, where Aligned operates data centers, recently shared that during that exact same time period, a single local laundromat consumed over two and a half times more water than our entire two-building campus in Northlake.