STEPHEN MOORE: Data centers aren’t just buildings. They are economic engines
Council Bluffs, Iowa, the city Abraham Lincoln designated as the eastern terminus of the transcontinental railroad in 1863, has spent more than 160 years living up to its historic role as a crossroads of American commerce. Today, the same Midwestern geography that once made the town a rail junction is drawing a new generation of infrastructure: sprawling data center campuses powering the artificial intelligence economy.
The story of Council Bluffs' latest reinvention begins in 2007, when Google selected the town of roughly 62,000 for one of its earliest company-built data centers. The decision mirrored Lincoln's 19th-century logic: the practical backbone of national infrastructure runs through the country's interior, where land, power, and connectivity converge.
Sixteen years after that initial groundbreaking, Google's cumulative investment in Iowa has surpassed $20 billion, according to company figures. The spending continues. In 2024 alone, the company pledged an additional $7 billion to expand its Council Bluffs footprint and to develop an entirely new campus in Cedar Rapids, about 130 miles to the northeast.
Google is far from the only player reshaping Iowa's economy. Meta operates one of its largest global data center campuses in Altoona, a suburb of Des Moines. Microsoft has poured billions of dollars into facilities in West Des Moines. Together, these projects have transformed a state long dismissed by coastal observers into what some analysts now call the crossroads of the cloud.
The buildout is producing measurable economic returns. Google reported that its Iowa operations generated approximately $2.7 billion in economic activity across the state last year. That figure includes direct spending on construction and operations, as well as indirect effects rippling through suppliers, contractors, and local businesses.
A central piece of that pipeline is a workforce development partnership between Google and the electrical training ALLIANCE, a joint program of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the National Electrical Contractors Association. Under the agreement, 700 apprentices will be trained in Cedar Rapids by 2030, learning the skilled trades that data center construction demands: electrical work, pipefitting, welding, and HVAC installation. The program does not require a four-year college degree, and apprentices earn wages while they learn, offering a path into high-paying careers without the burden of student debt.
The scale of construction is substantial. A single new campus can employ more than 1,000 tradespeople over multiple years. Those workers spend their paychecks in surrounding communities, supporting restaurants, hotels, hardware stores, and service businesses.
Beyond direct employment, the companies have committed resources to local communities. In Council Bluffs, Google learned that some students who received laptops through school programs lacked reliable internet access at home. The company responded by extending its own private wireless network to provide free connectivity to those households. Google has also directed millions of dollars to local schools and nonprofits, and funded the city's free public Wi-Fi network. The company has further committed to replenishing 120 percent of the water its Iowa facilities consume, beginning with a $1.3 million conservation project in the Missouri River Basin.
Iowa's political leadership, including Governor Kim Reynolds, Senator Joni Ernst, and local officials from both parties, actively courted these investments through low-tax policies, streamlined permitting, and direct outreach to technology companies. That approach has contrasted with states that pursued lengthy environmental reviews and added regulatory conditions, only to watch data center projects migrate elsewhere.
The stakes extend well beyond Iowa. Industry analysts describe the current AI-driven buildout as the largest infrastructure project in American history, exceeding in inflation-adjusted dollars the transcontinental railroad, the rural electrification programs of the 1930s, and the Interstate Highway System of the 1950s and 1960s. Hundreds of communities across the country are now competing, or choosing not to compete, for a share of that investment.
The historical parallels are difficult to miss. Lincoln signed the executive order establishing Council Bluffs as Mile Zero of the transcontinental railroad on November 17, 1863, in the midst of a devastating civil war. By the early 20th century, eight major railroads converged on the Iowa river town, and the local economy boomed as a junction point for agricultural shipments heading west and manufactured goods heading east. The wealth generated by that single infrastructure decision rippled across the region for generations.
Whether the data center era produces a similar long-term dividend for Iowa, and for whichever other states position themselves to host the next wave of facilities, will depend on decisions made by governors, legislators, county commissioners, and city councils in the coming years. For now, Council Bluffs has reclaimed its title as Mile Zero, this time for the infrastructure of artificial intelligence rather than steam locomotives, and the local economy is once more riding the momentum of a national project that runs, quite literally, through its backyard.