The Internet became available to the public in 1991, and by the late 1990s, Ashburn and its surrounding region of Northern Virginia was identified as an ideal location for data centers and storage of massive amounts of data. A physical location is required for the networked computer servers in a data center. Loudoun County has similar renown and is called “The Center of the Internet” and “Data Center Alley.” Online data isn’t stored in a “cloud,” of course. Ashburn, a city in Virginia’s Loudoun County about 34 miles from Washington D.C., is widely known as the Data Center Capital of the World.
