Google Lancaster
Chip types: TPU v5e,TPU v5p,TPU v7,TPU v6e. Epoch AI estimates ~137 MW.
Key facts
- Operator
- Owner
- Size
- 137 MW
- Location
- Lancaster, Ohio
- Stage today
Source
read 2026-08-14
What to do next
Next step: Already operating — the leverage now is enforcement: noise and water conditions, tax revenue tracking, and any expansion filing, which reopens the record.
What has happened so far (11 events)
- 2021-08-01announcement
Google announced Lancaster as the site for a future data center on Whiley Road in the Rock Mill Industrial Park; the city's Economic Development Director Mike Pettit had worked over a year to secure the project, and Google purchased approximately 120 acres of farmland for close to $4 million in August 2021. · source - 2023-05-03announcement
Google formally announced construction of two new data centers in Columbus and Lancaster, bringing its total Ohio investment to over $2 billion; Lancaster Mayor David Scheffler confirmed a 15-year, 100% tax abatement on real estate improvements, buildings, and equipment, plus a $700,000 roadwork grant from the Ohio Department of Development. · source - 2023-05-03construction
Construction began on Google's Lancaster campus at 104 Whiley Road on approximately 120 acres, with union labor from the Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council (over 18,000 workers across 21 affiliated local unions); Google also awarded a $100,000 grant to the Columbus Building Futures Program. · source - 2023-05-03coverage
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Google VP of Government Affairs Mark Isakowitz announced the two new central Ohio data centers; Isakowitz stated Google would have three operational data centers in central Ohio, and the $120 million Lancaster campus was described as being built on roughly 120 acres of farmland. · source - 2023-08-29financing
Google announced an additional $1.7 billion investment across its three central Ohio data center campuses in Columbus, New Albany, and Lancaster, to complete the Columbus and Lancaster centers and expand New Albany; each center was estimated to create approximately 1,200 construction jobs and a few hundred permanent employees. · source - 2023-08-30coverage
Construction Dive reported Google's $1.7 billion investment across its three Ohio campuses, with Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted stating that Ohio is establishing itself as a premier destination for technology investment. · source - 2024-01-01operational
The first data center building on Google's Lancaster campus was completed and became operational in 2024, according to Baxtel's facility tracker. · source - 2024-06-18financing
Google announced a further $2.3 billion investment in its three Ohio data center campuses (Columbus, New Albany, and Lancaster), bringing total Ohio investment to over $4.4 billion since 2019; Lt. Gov. Jon Husted called central Ohio an important tech hub. · source - 2025-01-01operational
A second building on Google's Lancaster campus (designated Lancaster 2 / 'Core Plaza') was completed and became operational in 2025, according to Baxtel's facility tracker. · source - 2025-01-01incentive
A Governing.com investigation confirmed Google has a Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) agreement with Lancaster but Google declined to disclose the specific terms; a related Google subsidiary (Magellan Enterprises LLC) received a 100%, 15-year CRA in Columbus valued at $54 million for 20 projected jobs. · source - 2025-11-12utility
Google signed a 15-year power purchase agreement with TotalEnergies for 1.5 TWh of renewable electricity from TotalEnergies' 49 MW Montpelier solar farm in Ohio, connected to the PJM grid to support Google's Ohio data center operations including Lancaster. · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)
State environmental permits
Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.
- Ohio EPA — Division of Air Pollution ControlThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- Ohio EPA eBusiness Center (Air Services)Searchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.
County & town filings
The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.
- Search Lancaster planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
- Search Lancaster property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.
Utility & grid records
The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.
- PJM Interconnection (Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
- Public Utilities Commission of Ohio — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
- FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
- Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.
Federal databases
Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.
- EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 39.710, -82.600 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
- EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
- EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.
These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.
Around here
- Ohio briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Ohio
- Aligned Data Centers - Pataskala industrial park — Pataskala (Licking County), 20 mi Awaiting decision
- Google Columbus — Columbus, 24 mi
- Google New Albany — New Albany, 27 mi
- Meta Prometheus — New Albany, 27 mi
- Urbana Technology Hub — Urbana (Champaign County), 67 mi In review
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Google Lancaster”, aigridwatch.com/projects/google-lancaster, retrieved 2026-10-11.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.
Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).