Land and data-center sites, North Carolina
Guides

What are data centers used for?

Data centers run cloud services, websites, email, payments, emergency calls, phone networks, streaming video, weather data, research computing, and AI. In North Carolina, the state's 911 network and its agency applications run in data centers too. AI is one use among many.

Check a parcel

Quick summary: This guide lists what data centers are used for, with records from the agencies and companies that run each service. It is for anyone who wants to know what happens inside these buildings before judging one. The key takeaway: AI is one use among many, and most everyday digital services, from 911 calls to card payments, run in data centers.

What data centers are used for

Data centers are used to run software and store data for services that people reach over a network. The International Energy Agency describes conventional data centers as general-purpose servers that support applications from cloud computing and web hosting to financial transactions. The EPA’s 2007 report to Congress found data centers in nearly every sector of the economy, including financial services, media, universities, and government.

Use Example from the public record
Cloud services, websites, and email Hosting, cloud storage, and web-based email
Payments Federal Reserve funds and securities transfers
Emergency calls North Carolina’s Next Generation 911 network
Government services State agency applications and websites
Health records The state health information exchange
Phones Mobile network hubs and 5G core functions
Streaming and cars Video delivery and connected navigation
Weather and research Satellite ground systems and university computing
AI Training and running AI models

The sections below take each use in turn. For what a data center is and what sits inside one, see What is a data center?

Cloud services, websites, and email

Cloud services, websites, and email run on servers in data centers. The federal definition of cloud computing describes on-demand network access to a shared pool of networks, servers, storage, applications, and services. Its example of software delivered this way is web-based email. The same definition places a physical layer of server, storage, and network hardware under every cloud service.

Websites need a host. The federal industry classification groups web hosting, application hosting, and cloud storage in one industry. North Carolina’s IT department hosts webservers for state government applications. Data center vs. cloud: on-premises, colocation, and cloud compared explains how a company chooses among those arrangements.

Public services in North Carolina

North Carolina’s emergency calls, agency systems, and shared health records all run in data centers. The state’s own records document each one.

911 calls

The 2024 State 911 Plan describes six geographically redundant core sites for call routing and two in-state data centers for hosted call handling. The last board-funded 911 answering point joined the Next Generation 911 network in February 2024.

State and local government

State applications run in the IT department’s data-center hosting facilities, which have redundant power supplies, redundant network connections, and monitoring at all hours. The department also rents server space to state and local agencies in its Eastern and Western data centers.

Health records

During an evacuation, participating providers can reach displaced residents’ medical records through the state’s designated health information exchange.

Payments, phones, and streaming

Payments, phone calls, and streaming video all pass through data centers on their way to you.

Payments. The Federal Reserve runs the applications for its Fedwire services from several data centers. Those services support critical United States financial markets. The data centers sit far enough apart to withstand most natural disasters and regional power and telecommunication outages.

Phones and 5G. A cell tower is the start of a call, not the whole path. One mobile carrier reports about 120 large cell-site aggregation hubs, each connected back to geographically diverse data centers. A federal 5G reference design hosts the 5G core network functions on cloud infrastructure.

Streaming video. A streaming service reports servers in more than 60 global data centers. It also places the same servers inside internet-provider networks, closer to viewers.

The short version: The phone in your pocket, the card in your wallet, and the 911 call you hope never to make all depend on servers in data centers. AI is a growing use, but it arrived on top of these, not in place of them.

Weather, cars, and research computing

Weather forecasts, connected cars, and scientific research use data centers for the computing they cannot do on their own.

Weather and satellites. A weather satellite collects raw data. NOAA’s satellite ground system receives that data and generates the products that forecasters use. The federal climate data archive in Asheville is moving its data and applications to the cloud through spring 2027.

Cars. Some vehicles use data centers for features, not for driving. A carmaker describes cloud-based connectivity for search results and connected navigation with weather, traffic, and parking information.

Research computing. Universities and national laboratories run their own high-performance computing. North Carolina State University’s computing service supplies computing resources to researchers and instructors. A federal laboratory’s computing center runs advanced systems for scientific discovery.

AI is one use, and a growing one

AI runs in data centers, but it is one workload among several. The International Energy Agency states that AI is only one of the workloads that run there. It estimates that accelerated servers, its stand-in for AI, used 15 percent of world data-center electricity in 2024. In the United States, AI servers used more than 40 terawatt-hours of the 176 terawatt-hours that data centers consumed in 2023, according to the national laboratory report to the Department of Energy.

The share is rising fast. The International Energy Agency’s 2026 update estimates that electricity use in AI-focused facilities grew 50 percent in 2025, against 17 percent for all data centers. In its base case, AI-focused facilities reach about 465 terawatt-hours of a projected 950 by 2030. See What is an AI data center?

Cryptocurrency mining is a separate use

Cryptocurrency mining is a separate use from cloud services and AI. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that mining runs in facilities that range from individual workstations to massive data centers. The International Energy Agency treats cryptocurrency as technically outside the information and communications sector and reports its electricity separately.

What the record cannot tell you about one building

A list of uses explains why data centers exist. It does not tell you what a specific proposal will run. The International Energy Agency notes that colocation operators often have limited visibility into the workloads in their own facilities. Ask the applicant, and read the filings with the county and the serving utility.

Need and history are separate questions. Why do we need data centers? covers what fails when one goes down. When was the first data center built? A short history shows how long these uses have run in dedicated buildings. Are data centers bad? The objections, checked against the record checks the arguments against new projects.

Take action: If you own land and want to know whether a data-center buyer would look at it, check the parcel against the public record first. Start with Is your parcel FOUND?

Key recap

  • Data centers run cloud services, websites, email, payments, emergency calls, phone networks, streaming, weather products, research computing, and AI.
  • North Carolina’s 911 network uses two in-state data centers for hosted call handling, and state agency applications run in state data centers.
  • AI servers used less than a quarter of United States data-center electricity in 2023, and AI’s share is growing fast.
  • Cryptocurrency mining is a separate use, and energy agencies report it apart.
  • A list of uses does not tell you what one proposed building will run. The applicant has to say.

Questions

What is the main purpose of a data center?

The main purpose of a data center is to keep servers, storage, and network equipment running without interruption so that services reached over a network stay available. Those services include cloud computing, websites, payments, and emergency calls.

Are data centers only used for AI?

No. AI is one workload among several. Most data-center electricity in the United States in 2023 ran conventional work such as cloud services, websites, and storage. AI’s share is rising.

Does my phone use a data center?

Yes. Mobile carriers connect their cell sites through hubs to data centers, and federal 5G designs host core network functions on cloud infrastructure.

Do 911 calls in North Carolina go through data centers?

Yes. The state’s 2024 911 plan describes two in-state data centers for hosted call handling, alongside six geographically redundant core sites for call routing.

References

Primary sources cited on this page, in APA style.

Tell us what the project needs

Load, acreage, counties, and timeline. We reply with how we would run the search and where we would start.

Start a site searchTry the calculators