RALEIGH — North Carolina’s October data-center pipeline lists 60 planned facilities totaling 4,529 megawatts, about nine times the state’s current operating capacity, underscoring the scale of potential utility, construction and local-planning demands.
Cleanview’s North Carolina tracker, updated in October, lists 15 operating data centers with a combined 502 megawatts of capacity. If every planned project were completed, the tracker shows total operating and planned capacity of 5,031 megawatts across 75 facilities.
The planned total is roughly nine times the capacity Cleanview assigns to facilities already operating in the state. That does not mean every project will be built or that each facility will draw its full listed capacity at all times. It does show the scale of infrastructure that developers, utilities and local governments may be asked to accommodate.
Cleanview lists 19 developers with operating or planned projects in North Carolina. Its largest planned entry is the 900-megawatt Kingsboro Data Center Campus in Edgecombe County. The next-largest listed projects are two 276-megawatt Digital Realty buildings in Mecklenburg County.
The statewide count has moved as projects are added or updated. Axios Charlotte reported on Oct. 1 that Cleanview’s September records showed at least 54 planned buildings totaling 4,258 megawatts and 13 operating buildings. Cleanview’s October page now shows 60 planned facilities totaling 4,529 megawatts and 15 operating facilities.
The difference is a snapshot change, not a like-for-like contradiction. It also illustrates why counts of proposed data centers should be dated and treated as a pipeline rather than a forecast of completed construction.
Axios reported that moratoriums and other obstacles could prevent some projects from moving forward. Its report cited an American Tower proposal in east Charlotte that is paused under the city’s data-center moratorium. Charlotte was considering extending that moratorium through Oct. 11, 2027, while officials study electricity and water use, noise, aesthetics and siting rules.
For North Carolina businesses, the pipeline reaches beyond the developers themselves. Projects that advance can create demand for land, power infrastructure, engineering and construction services. They can also force local governments and utilities to make decisions about permitting, capacity and who bears infrastructure costs.
The two sources reviewed by NC Business Desk do not provide a combined investment total or a statewide jobs estimate for the 60 planned projects. The documented significance is the size of the current development pipeline and its potential implications for utilities, construction, land use and local regulation.