Santa Clara is home to some of the largest tech companies in the world: Nvidia, Intel and AMD, so it is no wonder the city is embracing the data center boom.
asserted
city → embrace → boom
The south San Francisco Bay Area town has 58 data centers, the densest cluster on the West Coast, and is spending $459 million to double its power grid so it can build more.
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it → have → more
Almost all lie within the limits of the city and its neighbor, Mountain View.
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all → lie → city
But Santa Clara residents reap rewards, as local utility company Silicon Valley Power — owned by the City of Santa Clara — charges 18.2 cents a kilowatt-hour, 57% less than the 42.2 cents Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the private utility serving most of Northern California, charges.
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Gas → reap → California
Santa Clara also collects an estimated $29.5 million a year from the server farms that ring its apartment blocks, which gets spent on police, parks, libraries and other resident services.
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which → collect → police
“Our bills are about $130 for the electricity, the garbage and the water,” a resident at Santa Clara Square, an apartment complex surrounded by data centers, told the Post.
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resident → surround → Post
“If they are gonna build more data centers, then I would want to see … a decrease in rent, or the electricity bills.
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I → go → rent
The resident said she has lived at the Square for nearly five years and didn’t realize how many data centers surrounded it.
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centers → say → it
“For now, it doesn’t bother me,” she added.
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she → bother → me
Meanwhile a former Santa Clara resident told the Post their electricity bill jumped fivefold after moving away.
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bill → tell → Post
Forty miles north, San Francisco County has 15 data centers.
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County → have → centers
There, supervisors are pushing a 45-day moratorium on new ones, citing the burden on the Bayview, a neighborhood with a long history of pollution.
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supervisors → push → pollution
“We need to know all the impacts of having a data center in the community before we allow another to come inside of San Francisco,” Supervisor Shamann Walton, who wrote the measure, said at a City Hall press conference Monday.
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who → need → conference
The two cities aren’t built alike.
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cities → build → ?
San Francisco packs about 800,000 people into 47 square miles — roughly 18,600 people per square mile, according to the Census Bureau — so almost any site for a data center will have homes nearby.
uncertain
site → pack → homes
Santa Clara spreads 133,000 people across 18 square miles, about a third as dense, with a broad industrial belt of office parks and chip plants where most of the data centers cluster.
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most → spread → centers
Sant Clara’s neighboring counties, San Mateo and Alameda, currently have two data centers and 14 respectively, according to the US Data Center Map — and there has been local backlash against building further facilities in both.
uncertain
counties → have → both
Nearly seven in 10 Americans say they’d oppose a data center in their community, according to a Gallup poll in May — more than oppose nuclear power plants.
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they → say → plants
However, the very term “data center” has become loaded.
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term → become → ?
“There are many different kinds of data centers,” pointed out Jonathan Koomey, a researcher who has studied them for more than a quarter-century.
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who → be → century
“Smaller data centers that are properly run, that do not have their own [power] generation only have the impact of a big warehouse or an office building.”
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that → run → warehouse
Koomey advises AMD on efficiency goals and receives Amazon funding for research on data-center water use.
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Koomey → advise → use
Many people have also raised concerns about water use, but a May 2025 Valley Water briefing made clear most Santa Clara data centers use recycled water — treated wastewater from showers and toilets.
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use → raise → showers
“It’s not clean enough to drink.
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It → ’ → ?
You wouldn’t want people to drink it,” Koomey said.
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Koomey → want → it
“But it’s perfectly fine for watering golf courses or for cooling a data center.”
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it → ’ → center
Using recycled water, he said, keeps a data center’s water footprint to a minimum.
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he → use → minimum
But each facility handles water use differently, he added.
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he → handle → use
Sata Clara says those building the data centers pay their own connection costs plus a share of wider system upgrades.
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those → say → upgrades
As an example, the city’s servers need more power than the local substation can handle, so Intel is footing the whole bill to expand it — plus about $10 million in fees for the extra load, a February council report shows.
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report → need → load
“It’s very important for the people who are imposing costs on society to pay those costs,” Koomey noted.
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Koomey → ’ → costs
Not everyone is sold.
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everyone → sell → ?
The city documented complaints about noise, height and appearance after one facility went up on Memorex Drive.
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facility → document → Drive
Meanwhile, some local residents have developed their own measures of the impact on the environment.
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residents → develop → environment
One resident watches fish and birds at a local creek told The Post: “If I started to see an impact on the wildlife that is thriving off that creek, then I would probably be more concerned or have a problem with it.”
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I → watch → it
The Aporia
