Data Center Rankings by State

Methodology

• Data centers (filed, in construction, or operating) — distinct data center projects in Spark's infrastructure database that have reached at least one of these stages on or before 2026-07-11: a permit filed, construction started, or fully operational. This is a pipeline count, not just currently-live facilities, and it counts individually tracked projects rather than individual buildings — a single large campus can span many buildings under one or a handful of tracked projects.
• Permits filed (Jan to Jun 2025 / 2026) — count of permit-filed milestones logged for data center projects in the same six-month window (January 1 – June 30) of each year, so the two years compare like for like.
• Growth rate — the change in permit filings between the two half-year windows, calculated as (2026 filings − 2025 filings) ÷ (2026 filings + 2025 filings). This symmetric formula is bounded to ±100%, so a state going from a near-zero base doesn't produce a runaway percentage.
• Approval rate (2024–2026) — of the permit decisions (approved or denied) recorded for data center projects between January 2024 and 2026-07-11, the share that were approved. Permits still pending a decision are excluded. States with a “—” had no decided permits in this window.
• Active moratoria — the share of a state's counties with a currently active, adopted data-center moratorium, out of all counties in the state (townships and other sub-county jurisdictions aren't counted). If a state has adopted a genuine statewide moratorium, this shows 100% regardless of county count. Determined from a text-based classification of authority decisions, so treat it as directional rather than a legal determination.
• Spark Data Center Score — a proprietary 0–100 composite. Total data centers, permit-filing growth rate, approval rate, and active-moratoria share are each min-max normalized against a shared reference range spanning both the current and Jan 1, 2026 snapshots (rather than each snapshot's own independent range), then combined as 50% total data centers (filed, in construction, or operating), 20% approval rate, 10% permit-filing growth rate, and −20% active moratoria (a higher share of active moratoria pulls the score down). Using a shared range keeps the two snapshots on the same scale, so a state's score only moves when its own underlying numbers change — not simply because another state pulled further ahead. States with no decided permits are assigned the median approval rate across states that have one in that snapshot, so a thin sample doesn't unfairly tank the score. Rank reflects this score, highest to lowest.
• vs Jan 1 — how a state's rank has moved since Jan 1, 2026.
• Data is sourced from Spark's proprietary infrastructure tracking database, covering permitting authority decisions, hearings, and construction/operational milestones nationwide. Figures reflect what has been captured and verified as of the data cutoff and will shift as new filings and decisions are recorded.