I moved to Columbus after growing up in the Bay Area ~5 years ago, am friends with the head of economic development, and my wife worked at one of the data cente

I moved to Columbus after growing up in the Bay Area ~5 years ago, am friends with the head of economic development, and my wife worked at one of the data centers near Intel. It's hard to describe the sheer amount of land available there within only a 20 minute drive from a top 20 population town. Although I'm still a self-described snobby Californian, there is quite a lot to do here (except skiing and the beach). But to answer your question, that area is: 1. Close to a city (which Meta found out was important because no one wants to live in a place with two restaurants and crap schools) 2. They ran fiber in a 30 mile dia ring around most/the entire city 3. There is water galore 4. There is abundant and cheap electricity 5. There is (decent) access to talent 6. The schools are good and real estate is cheap, so you can import talent (like me and my wife) 7. The governor's office is very business friendly 8. Taxes are low (for everyone, there is talk of going to 0% income tax) So - this isn't really "why does a data center want to be near Intel" and more "there is a lot of assets in the immediate area that makes it wildly attractive to tech and other companies" and Columbus (and New Albany) has been extensively aggressive in getting these projects. Side note, we have: * 3ish AWS data centers (DC) * A Google DC (I think under construction) campus * Two Meta DC campuses (10 500k sq ft buildings built and planned) I don't think Microsoft nor Apple are here... yet. Wife was on DC site selection and nearly always they all end up in each location just down the street from each other. Edit: it's also centrally located and a 12 hr drive to 60+% of the US population. Good for manufacturing and data centers. Also, another poster noted very low natural disasters and seismic activity