Rep. Suhas Subramanyam is warning that the collection of data centers is making Northern Virginia a larger target for America’s enemies than the concentration of the federal government in Washington.
The Northern Virginia Democrat said his district, which includes all of Loudoun and Rappahannock counties, is home to more data centers than any other district and almost any country in the world.
Mr. Subramanyam said the hub of data centers in his district is a “security risk” and called it a “huge problem” during a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Tuesday.
The Washington Times report:
He estimated 10 data centers use more power than all of Washington and he said his district housed more than 200 such centers.
“You just look at the Ukraine war. When Russia failed to hack Ukraine’s telecom networks, what did they target? They targeted the data centers,” Mr. Subramanyam said. “And so Northern Virginia is becoming more of a target than Washington, D.C., itself.”
American security officials are aware of the threats to data centers and have worked to bolster defenses in Northern Virginia.
In 2019, the FBI’s Washington Field Office helped establish a Data Center Physical Security Working Group to better prevent sabotage through partnerships with the private sector.
“It is a two-way, real-time information sharing platform for physical security practitioners who work for data center companies in the Ashburn, Virginia area — also known as Data Center Alley — as well as in the surrounding northern Virginia area where data centers are spreading,” the working group’s website said. “The entities in Data Center Alley have [organized] to help protect the region’s data centers from threats, both foreign and domestic, as well as insider threats.”
