Data centers are a hot topic in Indianapolis.
Developers are trying to build data centers in the Martindale Brightwood neighborhood and Decatur Township. Many residents are opposed to it, citing concerns that include people’s health, the environment and the price of water and electric service.
The Metropolitan Development Commission hearing examiner will hear the petitions for the proposed Martindale Brightwood data center Feb. 12 and for the Decatur Township one Feb. 26.
Before that happens, Mirror Indy wanted to explain how we use data centers and why companies are trying to build more.
Here’s what we found out.
You probably use data centers every day
That movie you streamed on Netflix, the Instagram photos you were looking at instead of the movie and the YouTube video summary you watched later that explains the movie’s plot points — they all use data centers.
When you go to Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, HBO Max or Paramount+ and start streaming, you’re accessing a data file that’s on servers in Amazon Web Service data centers.
When you check your GMail or use Google Docs, Drive or other apps, you’re tapping into Google data centers. Microsoft apps use their own data centers.
Instagram taps into data centers owned by its parent company, Meta. YouTube uses Google data centers. Business websites use AWS data centers or Cloudflare data centers.
Even personal websites built with Squarespace or Wix use data centers.
What’s the difference between traditional data centers and AI data centers?
Traditional data centers store servers, storage drives and network equipment that hold the data people need to use the internet.
The data you choose to access is then sent to your TV, phone or computer via a nationwide network of fiber optic cables.
Companies are trying to build new data centers, though, to deal with artificial intelligence.
AI demands a significant amount of computing power. Before AI, data centers essentially had to store data and access it when needed. AI use will require data centers to process large amounts of information all day.
Think of it this way — old data centers are like work computers that are made to handle business apps like Microsoft Office. But they can’t handle the computing needs of advanced video games.
New data centers will be like gaming computers that have graphics processing units and other hardware that can process thousands of tasks simultaneously.
There are already data centers in Indianapolis
According to Data Center Map, which tracks data center locations for prospective customers, more than a dozen already exist in Indianapolis. All are the traditional type.
The largest is the 80,000-square-foot Lifeline Data Center at 401 N.Shadeland Ave., the former site of the Eastgate Shopping Center. The company says the data center is primarily powered by a 4-megawatt solar farm on the building’s rooftop but is backed by electricity from AES Indiana and 12 diesel generators.
Most of Indy’s data centers are located downtown, just south of the Henry Street Bridge construction site.
Some organizations in the city, like IU Indianapolis, also have their own data centers. IU Indianapolis’ data center is located at its Informatics & Communications Technology Complex at 535 W. Michigan St.
Who’s trying to build new data centers in Indy?
Two companies are attempting to build more data centers in Indianapolis.
In Decatur Township, Seattle-based Sabey Data Centers wants to build a two-building, 900,000-square-feet data center complex near the intersection of Camby Road and Kentucky Avenue.
Los Angeles-based Metrobloks proposes building a 154,372-square-foot data center at 505 N. Sherman Drive, the site of the former Sherman Drive-In Theater, which closed in the 1980s.
Metrobloks has said its cooling is designed to handle high-density AI workloads. Sabey recently partnered with two companies that focus on providing cooling for high-density operations, like AI.
Proposals to two other data centers — one in Pike Township and another in Franklin Township — were withdrawn after facing fierce opposition from residents.
What about elsewhere in Indiana?
The two data centers companies are trying to build in Indianapolis are part of a $3-trillion global effort to build data centers to cash in on the AI boom.
Most of that money will go toward the construction of hyperscale data centers that will each require hundreds of megawatts of electricity and millions of gallons of water per day to operate.
Hyperscale data centers are much larger than the data centers that exist within the county limits.
Instead, companies like Google are targeting rural areas.
Google attempted to build a hyperscale data center on 468 acres of farmland in Franklin Township, but later withdrew its petition after mass opposition from southside residents.
The company has broken ground on a data center campus near Monrovia in Morgan County, about 10 miles southwest of Indianapolis city limits. The 550-acre site will hold several data center buildings and another support building. It’s unclear how much energy and water the site would use, but Google has said it will pay for 100% of the power it uses and not use groundwater at the site.
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But others being built near Indianapolis might not be so large.
Another company, called RadiusDC, is planning to build two data centers in Plainfield. On Jan. 5, the Plainfield Plan Commission approved the company’s proposal to build two 100,000-square-foot data centers.
The company has said the site would use 24 megawatts of electricity and use about 700 gallons of water a day — the equivalent to the average daily water usage of two to three average houses or 14-18 loads of laundry.
East of Indianapolis, Surge Development planned to build a 775-acre Hancock County MegaSite with a large-scale data center and industrial complex, but the company later withdrew its application after residents opposed it.
Indy Documenters track data center proposals affecting your neighborhood. 📝 Read their notes.
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Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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