Question 1

What is FDISA?

Accepted Answer

The Florida Digital Infrastructure and Security Alliance (FDISA) is a Florida-based trade association representing companies and experts across technology, energy, water and infrastructure.

FDISA advocates for responsible digital infrastructure policy and serves as an evidence-based resource for communities evaluating data center proposals.

Question 2

What role does FDISA play in a community's decision?

Accepted Answer

FDISA's role is to provide evidence-based, project-specific information so communities can evaluate proposals on their merits.

FDISA does not advocate for a particular outcome in any single community's decision.

Question 3

Does FDISA approve or regulate individual projects?

Accepted Answer

No. FDISA does not approve, permit, regulate, or make governmental decisions concerning individual projects.

Those decisions are made by:
Applicable governmental bodies
Regulatory authorities
Utilities
Property owners and other responsible stakeholders

Question 4

How much water and energy do data centers use?

Accepted Answer

The encouraging news is that data center technology has advanced significantly in recent years.

Closed-loop cooling systems, for example, can reduce freshwater consumption by up to 70% compared with traditional cooling methods, according to the Brookings Institution. Facilities are also increasingly incorporating renewable energy sources, including wind and solar, and investing in more energy-efficient designs to reduce their overall environmental footprint.
Rather than assume every proposal will have the same impact, communities should expect developers to demonstrate how a specific project will protect local resources through its design, technology and operating plans.

Question 5

How are noise, traffic and construction impacts managed?

Accepted Answer

These are standard parts of local permitting review. Best practices include:
Traffic impact studies
Designated truck routes away from schools and neighborhoods
Construction-hour limits
Sound barriers and noise mitigation
Ongoing communication between developers and local officials

Communities can require these commitments as a condition of approval and hold developers accountable throughout construction.

Question 6

What economic impact do data centers have?

Accepted Answer

Nationally

The data center industry supported an estimated 5.5 million direct, indirect and induced jobs, contributing about $927 billion to U.S. GDP and $204.4 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue, according to the Data Center Coalition's 2026 report.
Locally

Individual large-scale facilities have generated $20 million to $30 million or more annually in property tax revenue in some jurisdictions — funding priorities like schools and emergency services in the counties that host them, based on industry tracking of municipal data by Civic IQ.

Question 7

Understanding Digital Infrastructure in Florida

Accepted Answer

Digital infrastructure is the physical infrastructure powering our increasingly digital economy.

Every time we use online banking, stream a movie, navigate with maps, access a medical record, store a family photo online or use artificial intelligence, physical infrastructure is working behind the scenes.
The cloud is somewhere.

FDISA believes Florida should compete for the data center investment and economic opportunity that comes with our growing demand for computing power — and that the best way to grow this industry is responsibly, thoughtfully and based on facts.

We are Florida's evidence-based resource for elected officials and communities, helping keep these conversations grounded in verifiable data, engineering, research and actual experience.

We recognize that communities may have reasonable questions about water, electricity, noise, aesthetics, land use and other potential impacts. Those questions deserve clear answers.
Our Approach Is Simple
Don't start with yes. Don't start with no. Start with the facts.

Question 8

What is a data center?

Accepted Answer

At its most basic level, a data center is a physical space where computing equipment is housed and operated.

But the term covers an enormous spectrum of facilities, and understanding that spectrum is important. A data center can be anything from a small room inside an office building to a multibillion-dollar campus containing several large buildings.
IT Closets and Server Rooms

At the smallest end of the spectrum is the familiar IT closet or server room. A hospital, school, law firm, local government or business might maintain a dedicated room containing servers, networking equipment and data-storage systems supporting its own operations.

These facilities may occupy only a few hundred square feet — or less — and primarily serve the organization located in the building.
Enterprise Data Centers

An enterprise data center is a larger facility operated primarily to support a particular company or institution. Banks, healthcare systems, universities, governments and major corporations may operate them to run business applications, maintain records, process transactions and support their employees and customers.

These facilities can range from relatively modest buildings to substantial purpose-built infrastructure.
Edge Data Centers

Edge data centers are generally smaller facilities located closer to the people, devices or businesses using the information they process. Their purpose is speed.

Instead of sending every piece of information hundreds or thousands of miles for processing, an edge facility allows certain computing functions to occur closer to the user. This matters most where milliseconds count — telecommunications, autonomous systems, advanced manufacturing, gaming and other real-time digital services.
Colocation Data Centers

A colocation data center is essentially shared digital infrastructure. Instead of one company owning an entire facility, multiple businesses lease secure space, electrical capacity and connectivity within the same data center.

A colocation facility might support financial institutions, healthcare companies, technology firms and cloud providers under the same roof while maintaining separate and secure computing environments.
Cloud Data Centers

Cloud data centers provide the computing infrastructure behind cloud-based services. Rather than every company purchasing and maintaining all of its own servers, businesses and consumers can use computing capacity provided through cloud platforms.

These facilities support many of the applications people interact with every day — from file storage and business software to streaming, online commerce and artificial intelligence.
Hyperscale Data Centers

At the largest end of the spectrum are hyperscale data centers — extremely large facilities designed to provide enormous amounts of computing and storage capacity at scale. They are generally developed for major cloud, technology or AI workloads and may involve hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in investment.

A hyperscale development can consist of multiple large buildings constructed over time as part of a larger campus. Their infrastructure requirements — electricity, fiber connectivity and cooling — can be substantial, which is why projects of this scale receive significant engineering, utility, land-use and regulatory review.
AI Data Centers and High-Performance Computing

You may also hear terms such as AI data center, high-performance computing facility or HPC facility. These describe facilities optimized for particularly computationally intensive workloads.

AI training, scientific modeling, medical research and advanced engineering may require large concentrations of specialized processors working together, creating different power density, cooling and infrastructure requirements from more traditional computing facilities.
Why the Distinction Matters

These categories can overlap. A hyperscale facility, for example, may also be a cloud data center and contain substantial AI infrastructure.
The important point is that “data center” is not a single building type.

A server room supporting a local business and a hyperscale AI campus are both forms of digital infrastructure, but their size, investment, electricity demand, water needs, employment, cooling technology and community impacts can be dramatically different.

Rather than asking what data centers generally do, the better starting point for evaluating a proposed development is:
What type of facility is actually being proposed?

Question 9

Are all data centers the same?

Accepted Answer

No — and this is one of the most important principles for communities and policymakers to understand.

Even within the categories described above, facilities can use very different technologies and designs. Two similarly sized data centers might:
Use different cooling systems
Consume different amounts of water
Have different electrical configurations
Employ different backup-power technologies
Create different sound profiles
Location matters. Climate matters. Engineering matters. The computing workload matters.

That is why FDISA cautions against taking a statistic from one facility — or one particularly large project somewhere else in the country — and applying it to every data center proposed in Florida.

A headline saying “a data center uses X gallons of water” or “requires X megawatts of electricity” is incomplete without knowing what type of facility, what size, what technology and what operating assumptions produced that number.

For policymakers, the better approach is straightforward:
Understand the actual project and evaluate it on its merits.

Question 10

What is “compute,” and why does it matter?

Accepted Answer

Compute is essentially computational horsepower — our ability to process information and perform increasingly complex digital tasks.

More compute allows researchers to analyze enormous datasets, businesses to operate sophisticated applications, scientists to model complex systems and artificial-intelligence systems to learn from extraordinary quantities of information.
Where It Shows Up in Florida's Economy
Healthcare and research — analyzing genomic and clinical data, accelerating drug discovery, improving medical imaging and modeling proteins
Weather and hurricane forecasting — processing enormous amounts of satellite, radar and sensor data
Cybersecurity, agriculture, aerospace, financial services, logistics and national security

And despite how digital all of this sounds, compute ultimately requires something very physical:
Servers. Fiber. Electricity. Cooling technology. Cybersecurity. Buildings.

That is why digital infrastructure matters.

Question 11

Why do we need more data centers?

Accepted Answer

Because the amount of computing our economy requires is growing rapidly.

Cloud computing fundamentally changed how businesses and individuals store and process information. Artificial intelligence is now accelerating that demand even further.

But this is bigger than any single technology. Healthcare is becoming more computationally intensive; faster diagnoses, safer flights, more reliable banking, better weather forecasting and modern manufacturing all depend on computing capacity behind the scenes — so are financial services, aerospace, defense, scientific research, manufacturing, transportation and communications. As those industries require more computing capacity, the physical infrastructure supporting that capacity must grow with them.
A Familiar Pattern

Every generation builds the infrastructure that powers the next economy.
The electricity grid helped enable the industrial economy
Interstate highways helped enable the logistics economy
Internet and fiber helped unlock the information economy

Now, digital infrastructure is laying the foundation for the next generation of economic growth.
The demand exists. The infrastructure serving that demand will be built. FDISA believes Florida should compete to build it here.

Question 12

What protections does Florida law provide for communities and ratepayers?

Accepted Answer

Florida's SB 484, effective July 1, 2026, establishes a statewide framework addressing several common community concerns:
Local control preserved over land-use and zoning decisions
Ratepayer protection from subsidizing the infrastructure needed to serve new facilities
Reclaimed water can be required for water-intensive proposals
Utility planning — extensive review before connecting large new electric loads to the grid

Question 13

Who decides whether a data center project moves forward?

Accepted Answer

Local governments retain zoning and permitting authority.

Data center projects go through the same land-use, environmental and permitting review as other major commercial and industrial development, and are built on privately acquired land rather than through eminent domain.
Every proposal is evaluated on its own merits.

Question 14

Why should a community consider data center development?

Accepted Answer

Communities should evaluate data centers the way they evaluate any major economic development proposal — weighing benefits, impacts and fit with the community's long-term vision. Every project should meet rigorous standards for water use, traffic, noise, land use and public safety.
Potential Community Benefits
Expanded tax base supporting schools, infrastructure and other community services
Employment, from skilled construction work during the build to long-term technical and facilities roles once operational
Support for healthcare, public safety, emerging technologies and national security

This infrastructure also helps protect the state's position as a destination for business investment and economic growth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Digital Infrastructure Basics

Community Impact

Florida Law & Decision-Making

About FDISA