RVA757 Connects strategy calls for more data centers along corridor

As artificial intelligence, cloud expansion and data-intensive industries reshape the U.S. economy, leaders in Richmond and Hampton Roads hope to position the Interstate 64 corridor as a hub for digital infrastructure.

That was the centerpiece of RVA757 Connects’ 2035 Global Internet Hub Vision plan released Tuesday at the Richmond-Hampton Roads economic development nonprofit’s Convergence conference at William & Mary.

The new plan builds on the nonprofit’s previously outlined ambition to become a global internet hub. RVA757 President and CEO John Martin says the changes reflect how quickly the landscape around data centers, AI, subsea cables and energy demands has evolved.

“Believe it or not, most people still believe that the global internet is held together by satellites,” said SubOptic Foundation President Erick Contag, a panelist at the event. “The reality is about 99% of the world is connected via these long-haul [subsea] digital infrastructure cables.”

Martin said Richmond and Hampton Roads are “stronger together” and offer complementary strengths. For example, Hampton Roads provides subsea cable access while the Richmond region offers land availability and data centers.

“It takes both regions to offer all these things that are in a global internet hub,” Martin said. “We couldn’t do it alone.”

The plan highlights five pillars the region must advance: connecting data through network rings and fiber routes; powering data with a diversified energy mix, including offshore wind and fusion technologies; securing data with the region’s strong cybersecurity workforce; transforming data through applied AI and research; and ensuring all residents benefit from expanded connectivity.

At a panel discussion at the event, executives from Dominion Energy, Virginia Natural Gas and Commonwealth Fusion Systems discussed the state’s rapidly evolving energy landscape. Moderator Adam Sledd, executive director of the Dominion Energy Innovation Center, noted that other markets are now looking to Virginia as a leader on “energy for AI.”

At the same time, panelists warned that meeting rising data center demand will require significant new power generation and transmission investments across multiple energy sources — from offshore wind and natural gas to nuclear and emerging technologies like fusion.

Panelists said data center developers are increasingly focused on how quickly they can get power to a site, a factor that can determine whether they build in a region at all.

“The top one now is speed-to-power,” said Rick Needham, chief commercialization officer at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the Massachusetts-based company building a $2.5 billion commercial nuclear fusion energy plant in Chesterfield County. “Don’t have it? They won’t come.”

Martin cautioned against narrow views of the data center industry, which has come under criticism by some elected officials and residents, particularly in Northern Virginia, who cite demands on water and power to keep data centers cool, in addition to potential energy rate hikes for residences.

“Everybody thinks data centers [mean] hyperscalers, huge energy hogs… and they don’t realize it’s all different flavors and sizes,” Martin told Virginia Business. As AI creates new real-time data demands, he argued, regions without local data processing capacity and strong network connections risk losing competitiveness.

Martin added that Northern Virginia’s maturing data center market, still the world’s largest, is creating opportunities elsewhere in the state. Loudoun County, known as Data Center Alley, has 199 data centers in operation, with 117 more in the pipeline. Prince William County has 44 data centers and 15 under development.

“Northern Virginia reached a tipping point of sorts, in terms of so many data centers being approved that they started to experience some pushback from different groups,” Martin said. “And the heat of that has picked up, and it’s caused data center developers to maybe move a little bit faster at looking at other locations.”

Stafford County, for instance, will be home to a $2 billion data center campus owned by Vantage Data Centers, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced this month, and Google is planning to build three data centers next to Chesterfield’s Meadowville Technology Park.

Martin stressed the urgency of investing in digital infrastructure, calling it a “line in the sand moment” to the event’s attendees.

“Today, we’re going to focus on our global internet hub strategy and really drill down deep into that, and make it our competitive advantage, make it our national, perhaps even international distinction, and make it our strategy to transform our economy, really our leapfrog strategy, to outperform, catch up and outperform peer regions and even the states in the southeast,” he said.

Over the next few months, RVA757 plans to work with stakeholders to turn the 2035 strategy into an actionable implementation plan, incorporating the feedback gathered at the conference.