California data centers: what the public record shows.

These notes name selected records, say which kinds of public evidence were checked and show what remains missing. They do not add anything to the published counts.

• Economic development incentives — Partly checked
  • The GO-Biz California Business Portal incentives page could not be read: secure connection handshake failure.
  • California Competes Tax Credit award lists were not yet reviewed directly, so any data center recipients there are unknown.
  • No county or city enterprise-zone, community-benefit or fee-credit programme was surveyed.

  Selected records

  • Tax Guide for Manufacturing, and Research & Development, and Electric Power Equipment & Buildings Exemption · California Department of Tax and Fee Administration
  • Incentives and Financing — California Business Portal (GO-Biz) · Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development
• Utility commission and large-load records — Partly checked
  • PG&E's Electric Rule 30 transmission-interconnection application and its interim approval of 24 July 2025 were identified in search results but not yet reviewed directly.
  • No Silicon Valley Power electric service agreement, large-load tariff or City of Santa Clara council agenda report was read; the city web server blocked the projects listing.
  • SMUD, LADWP, Vernon Public Utility and Pittsburg Power Company large-load records were not searched.
  • CAISO and utility interconnection queues were not examined.

  Selected records

  • Data Centers — California Energy Commission programs and topics page · California Energy Commission
  • Proposed Order Instituting Rulemaking on California Advanced Electric Rate Design (Agenda ID #24097, Rev. 1) · California Public Utilities Commission
• Environmental and construction permits — Checked
  • SCAQMD and SMAQMD permit databases were not searched at all, so Los Angeles basin and Sacramento generator permits are missing.
  • BAAQMD's own permit and public-notice database was not queried directly; only two BAAQMD documents reached through CEQAnet and the air district's CEQA letters directory were read.
  • Water withdrawal, discharge and stormwater construction general permit notices were not searched.
  • CEC opt-in certification and Application for Certification cases above 100 MW were not enumerated; one such certification is reported for the AVAIO Pittsburg site and was not read.

  Selected records

  • Power Plant Compliance and Siting — backup generating system and Small Power Plant Exemption case index · California Energy Commission
  • RB Inyokern Data Center (26-SPPE-01) — CEC project page · California Energy Commission
  • AVAIO Pittsburg Backup Generating Facility (24-SPPE-01) — CEC project page · California Energy Commission
• Local planning, assessor and map records — Partly checked
  • CEQAnet's free-text query parameter is not honoured by the server on a plain GET, so no systematic keyword sweep of California CEQA documents for 'data center' was possible.
  • The City of Santa Clara web server could not be retrieved during review, so no Santa Clara planning file numbers or Silicon Valley Power agreements were read for the ten-plus Santa Clara projects in the current research record.
  • No county assessor or GIS parcel portal was queried for any California county; every parcel number here comes from a CEC or CEQAnet description.
  • San Jose's Legistar council record, where the Prologis STEM Park item would sit, was not reached.
  • Los Angeles, Irvine, El Segundo, Vernon, Newark, Fremont, Sacramento, San Diego and Imperial County planning portals were not searched.

  Selected records

  • Gilroy Data Center (by Amazon Web Services) — official City project page · City of Gilroy
  • CEQAnet SCH 2021080438 — CA3 Data Center, Notice of Preparation of a Draft EIR · Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (CEQAnet State Clearinghouse)
  • CEQAnet SCH 2025030999 — SVY03A Data Center Campus, Mitigated Negative Declaration · Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (CEQAnet State Clearinghouse)
• Tax abatements and development agreements — Partly checked
  • No executed development agreement, ground lease or community benefits agreement document was opened.
  • The San Jose exclusive negotiating agreement or ground lease for the city-owned STEM Park parcel was not located on the city site.
  • Redevelopment successor agency and infrastructure financing district records were not searched.
• Operator disclosures — Partly checked
  • Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle and Apple location disclosures were not yet reviewed directly; the Microsoft sites here come from CEC and CEQAnet records instead.
  • Colocation operator location pages (Equinix, Digital Realty, CoreSite, STACK, Prime, NTT, Centersquare, Cologix, EdgeConneX, QTS, Serverfarm, Csquare, T5, DataBank, ScaleMatrix) were not retrieved; their facilities here rest on the Compute Atlas extract.
  • No operator sustainability or investor filing was checked for California-specific capacity.

  Selected records

  • Amazon data center investment: local jobs, education, sustainability · Amazon
  • Vantage Data Centers — Silicon Valley data center campus location page · Vantage Data Centers
• Open datasets and directories — Checked
  • Data Center Map was not yet reviewed directly; no directory listing was used as evidence.
  • Compute Atlas leads not individually examined beyond the extract fields were not turned into research leads, including most Equinix, Digital Realty, Csquare, EdgeConneX, Lumen and CoreSite entries.
  • No cross-check against FracTracker, Baxtel, datacenters.com, Cloudscene or PeeringDB was attempted.

  Selected records

  • Compute Atlas licensed directory, state extract · Compute Atlas
  • Data Center Map — California listing · Data Center Map
• Closures, withdrawals and former names — Checked
  • No City of Coachella ordinance, resolution or minutes could be read, so the agreement termination and the reported permanent data center prohibition rest on a dataset lead only.
  • The City of Monterey Park letter documenting the 1977 Saturn Street cancellation did not respond during review.
  • Older California closures and demolitions — 1990s and 2000s carrier hotels, Herakles, Above.net and Savvis-era sites, and any data center lost to redevelopment — were not searched.
  • No archived or Wayback retrieval was attempted for retired operator pages.

  Selected records

  • CEQAnet SCH 2012121003 — T5 Data Expansion Project (EA 971) 444 North Nash Street · Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (CEQAnet State Clearinghouse)
  • Letter to City of Monterey Park regarding the 1977 Saturn Street data center application (LAX) · City of Monterey Park
• News and other discovery — Partly checked
  • The Little Hoover Commission report and the Assembly oversight hearing materials were not read.
  • No systematic sweep of California local news for data center moratoria was done; moratoria are reported in Coachella and Imperial County and neither was confirmed from a government record.