{"id":452233,"date":"2026-09-03T13:52:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T13:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/452233\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T13:52:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T13:52:31","slug":"opinion-building-data-centers-could-yield-huge-influx-of-state-revenue-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/452233\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Building data centers could yield huge influx of state revenue \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fearmongering and short-sightedness surrounding<\/a> building artificial intelligence data centers in San Diego County is spreading like the wildfires we know all too well in California. Data centers are the backbone of the modern and future AI economy, comparable to rail lines, power plants and steel mills during the Industrial Revolution. Rather than chase down every strawman argument in the debate, let\u2019s look at what a comparable county actually did \u2014 and what happened when it did.<\/p>\n

Loudoun County, Va., sits at the edge of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Large, diverse and a tech hub, it is a natural comparison for San Diego County. Loudoun was one of the first counties in America to embrace the data center buildout by hyperscalers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft.<\/p>\n

The results are hard to argue with. Loudoun is now home to more than 250 data centers. A tax on the computer equipment inside them generates <\/a>roughly $1.3 billion a year \u2014 40% of the county\u2019s total tax revenue. On the strength of that windfall, Loudoun has cut property tax rates by nearly 30% over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Let that sink in for a San Diegan. Cutting taxes.<\/p>\n

We have grown so accustomed to the ratchet of ever-rising taxation that Proposition 13 \u2014 one of the most popular taxpayer protections in California history \u2014 doesn\u2019t actually cut property taxes. It merely slows how fast they rise. Now imagine a California in which enough new revenue arrived that we could debate cutting rates instead of merely capping their growth.<\/p>\n

Data centers wouldn\u2019t just protect Proposition 13. West Virginia plans on directing <\/a>50% of data center revenue to reducing or eliminating state income taxes. California could follow suit and make the annual scramble for new tax revenue beside the point.<\/p>\n

The AI data center buildout is also a remarkable opportunity in that the gains will clearly benefit all Americans, not just the wealthy and the tech sector. The buildout will create hundreds of thousands of blue-collar jobs and unions are vigorously supporting<\/a> building data centers. Virginia farmers have told me that income from the energy infrastructure built to serve data centers has helped save their farms. And the broader wave of investment in Loudoun has paid for new roads and schools, and created 15,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

San Diego needs exactly that kind of investment. Jobs. Roads. Water. Power. California\u2019s infrastructure is starved, and has been for years. Data centers offer a way to bring private capital to bear on public problems \u2014 without raising a single tax.<\/p>\n

It is no coincidence that as California has grown steadily more hostile to business, its infrastructure has crumbled alongside it. And yet the state holds a natural advantage in this fight: Silicon Valley is where the AI revolution\u2019s intellectual capital already lives. Why would we send the infrastructure that serves it anywhere else?<\/p>\n

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle are investing <\/a>trillions of dollars in AI data centers. Much of that will go toward hardware and software. But none of it works without power, water and roads \u2014 and these companies know it. They are willing to help build all three.<\/p>\n

No one is suggesting these companies deserve a free ride, or that they should draw resources away from the families who already live in these communities. The companies themselves aren\u2019t suggesting that either. They are prepared to build power plants and water systems as the price of entry. California\u2019s counties and cities should take them up on it<\/a> \u2014 while insisting on real returns for the communities that host them.<\/p>\n

This is also a competition. If California and the rest of the country decline to build these data centers, someone else will. The jobs will not vanish; they will simply relocate \u2014 and our rivals, China chief among them, would be glad to have them. Right now, the advantage is ours. The companies leading the AI boom are American, and they would rather build here than anywhere else on earth.<\/p>\n

Data centers and the AI buildout offer California a rare chance to be the Golden State again. The only question is whether Californians can finally get out of their own way long enough to notice.<\/p>\n

Gustafson is the former chairman of the Republican Party of San Diego County and an Escondido planning commissioner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fearmongering and short-sightedness surrounding building artificial intelligence data centers in San Diego County is spreading like the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[964,975,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-452233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-commentary","tag-opinion","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}