Emerging Digital Infrastructures

Background & motivation

The infrastructures that power our digital lives are undergoing rapid transformation. As demand for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and large-scale data processing accelerates, data centers have emerged as some of the most consequential, and contested, forms of physical infrastructure being built today. These facilities promise economic development and technological capacity, yet they also raise pressing questions about energy and water use, local tax structures, land use authority, community benefit, and the long-term obligations communities take on when they host them.

This research focus area examines how emerging digital infrastructures, with particular attention to data centers, impact the places where they are built and how we can develop better policy to address those localized impacts. We study the policy frameworks, siting decisions, and development dynamics that determine who bears the costs and who reaps the benefits, with special concern for rural and under-resourced communities that are increasingly targeted for development. As part of this, the Quello Center convenes the Michigan Statewide Data Center Planning & Development Working Group that brings together public and private actors across Michigan to address the most pressing issues facing communities around data center development. Through empirical research and outreach, we aim to inform more transparent, accountable, and equitable approaches to infrastructure governance.

Resources

How Likely is a Data Center Developer Interested in My Community?
This simple, five-question self-assessment is designed for Michigan local governments to consider whether or not their communities are likely of interest to prospective data center development. The self-assessment is meant to be a sort of “temperature check” that local officials can use to gauge how urgently they need to address data center development in their work, especially as it pertains to planning. 

Data Centers in Michigan
This document, co-authored with the Community Economic Development Association of Michigan, outlines basic facts about data center development and its impacts in Michigan.

Contact
Dr. Jean Hardy: jhardy@msu.edu | +1.206.696.0707
Quello Center: quello@msu.edu | +1.517.432.8005