QTS is doubling its planned York County, SC campus to roughly 800 acres with a $26 million land buy, positioning it as the company’s largest property and a future hyperscale site.
The billion‑dollar facility will host e‑commerce, streaming, social media, and electronic records workloads, which in practice means dense compute and strong potential for AI and GPU clusters even if not branded that way yet.
QTS is emphasizing a low‑pressure pumped refrigerant cooling design to avoid water use, but residents remain more worried about power demand, grid impact, and local electric bills than about cooling technology.
The county granted a waiver to let buildings go from a 60‑foot to 80‑foot height limit, signaling willingness to accommodate large‑scale data halls typical of high‑density GPU infrastructure.
Local pushback centers on visual impact, “monstrous” scale, and long‑term community effects, which could shape permitting timelines and conditions on power, noise, and transmission infrastructure.
South Carolina is clearly courting multiple hyperscale campuses, with a similar 859‑acre proposal in Colleton County, pointing to an emerging regional cluster for large AI‑capable data centers.
The article is worth a read for understanding how rural communities and local policy are reacting to the physical and electrical realities of hyperscale buildouts.
Source: QTS to meet with public after $26M land buy to double size
