Salena Zito explains how data centers are benefiting communities

Washington Examiner columnist Salena Zito shed light on the data center debate, arguing data centers benefit communities by being “great job creators.”Zito said some data center developers are offering to build new high school football fields, community centers, and just be “good neighbors.”“These are great job creators, they’re working with the communities,” Zito said on the Hugh Hewitt Show Monday. Zito said states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia are ideal places for data power centers, because of the vast amounts of open space. Zito has previously said Pennsylvania contains the infrastructure to help both data center developers and communities that once boomed from coal-fired power plants. The electric grids built for high-voltage connections are an invaluable energy source for data centers.Zito said “people are happy” with data centers in places along the Appalachian Rust Belt, such as Beaver County’s Aligned Data Centers.Zito said these communities see a pull for multiple generations of their families to “stay put and have a career” that brings wealth, as well as tax advantages. She also highlighted the $40 trillion national debt and said data centers could play a pivotal role in reducing it, since they rely on national highways and the national grid.AI’S DATA CENTER PROBLEM COULD MOVE TO SPACE“I would call it something that is a ‘set aside’, something that sounds aspirational, that they’re buying into the future,” Zito said.Zito said people understand the toll the national debt will leave on their grandchildren, and “recognize that there’s a problem.”