NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee now has somewhere between 60 and 65 data centers in operation, and a growing list of local governments wants to slow down the next wave.
Two industry research firms, DataCenterMap and Baxtel, each count 65 operating facilities spread over 10 counties. Davidson County has the most with 28, Shelby County is next with 13 and Knox County has nine.
A separate public tracker that follows the industry state by state puts the total at 73 sites: 60 running, four under construction and nine proposed, with another 20 projects stopped or paused. Its proposed list includes a campus on the Oak Ridge Reservation in Anderson County, a 300-megawatt project in Bradley County, a 350-megawatt site in Clarksville in Montgomery County and a 70-megawatt plan in Memphis.
Not every facility is a server farm for big tech. The tracker also logs bitcoin mining operations in Campbell, Cumberland, Gibson and White counties, along with research computing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Local leaders are reacting. At least 10 Tennessee cities and counties have a temporary ban on new data center construction, according to research from Interconnected Capital. Those moratoriums do not touch centers that are already running.
Power bills are a big part of the worry, because data centers draw heavy electricity loads. Think Tennessee, a policy research group, found residential electric bills in the state climbed an average of 1.6% from 2023 to 2024, and that some residential customers saw a 3.2% jump that pushed the typical monthly bill to about $150.
With the midterm election on Tuesday, it is not yet clear whether data centers will move votes, but the fight over where they go is expected to keep landing on city and county agendas.
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