Data centers in Illinois

The 10 largest data centers in Illinois

Campuses ranked by the power capacity of the buildings operating today.

How Cleanview tracks data centers

There's no government database of data centers. We build ours from public records, one campus at a time, and track every kind: AI and hyperscale campuses, colocation sites, enterprise data centers and crypto mines. We only count individual buildings as data centers, and group them into campuses: one site, usually built in phases.

Built from primary sources

Each campus starts with a public document: an air permit, a building permit, a rezoning or a utility filing. We record each building's power and IT capacity from them and save every source.

From first permit to operation

We follow each campus from its first filing through construction, and update it as buildings come online. Most campuses are built in phases, so we track every building.

Checked from above

Satellite images show when crews start grading and when buildings go up. Under construction means work has started on site, not just an announcement.

Questions about data centers in Illinois

How many data centers are in Illinois?

Cleanview tracks 159 data centers in Illinois, on 64 campuses, as of November 11, 2026. 49 are operating, 12 under construction and 98 planned.

Why do other sites count more data centers?

Cleanview only counts individual buildings as data centers. Some directories count facilities instead, and a facility can occupy an entire building or one or more rooms within a building. That means "10 data centers" on one of those lists could mean 10 rooms within a single building operated by a colocation company. Cleanview counts that as one data center, since counting each room would count the same building 10 times. Those directories also count many small colocation, edge and enterprise data centers. Cleanview has more of a focus on hyperscale and AI data centers. Of the 159 data centers Cleanview tracks in Illinois, 49 are operating, and the rest are under construction or planned.

Where are data centers being built in Illinois?

Construction is underway on 12 data centers on 8 campuses in Illinois. The largest are NTT Chicago Data Center Campus in DuPage County, Compass ORD I in Cook County and Aligned Elk Grove Village (Northwest Point) in Cook County.

What is the largest data center in Illinois?

Meta DeKalb in DeKalb County is the largest operating data center campus in Illinois, with 240 MW of power capacity online.

How many AI data centers are in Illinois?

Cleanview doesn't label campuses as AI or not, since most new campuses can serve both AI and cloud computing. It tracks every kind of data center in Illinois, from AI and hyperscale campuses to colocation sites, enterprise data centers and crypto mines.

What is a hyperscale data center?

A hyperscale data center is a campus built for one of the largest cloud and AI companies, like Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft or OpenAI. They usually draw hundreds of megawatts. Cleanview tracks 7 campuses in Illinois planned at 1 GW or more.

What's the difference between power capacity and IT capacity?

Power capacity is the electricity a campus is built to draw from the grid. IT capacity is the part that reaches its servers and chips; the rest runs cooling and other equipment. Cleanview tracks both for every building.

What kinds of data centers does Cleanview track?

Every kind, with more of a focus on hyperscale and AI: campuses built for companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI, colocation sites leased to many tenants, enterprise data centers a company runs for itself, and crypto mines.