Data Center Economy: What Quincy Actually Got

Quincy, Washington data centers: Microsoft’s 2006 land purchase

Quincy is a farming town of 8,500 in central Washington, miles from the Columbia River. In 2006, Microsoft bought 75 acres of bean fields in an industrial zone in Quincy. On that land it built a 500,000-square-foot data center that it owns, to run its Bing search engine and Hotmail email servers.

Quincy now has roughly 30 data centers. CNN says nearly all of the town's infrastructure and services are new or improved, and that data centers made this possible.

Data center tax revenue: 57% of Quincy’s property taxes

CNN reports that the roughly 30 data centers pay an estimated 57% of Quincy's property taxes. It ties that data center tax revenue to the city's public building spree, and lists what the town now has:

• A $120 million state-of-the-art high school
• A hospital
• A public library
• Police and fire stations
• Paved sidewalks
• Sewage systems and a wastewater treatment plant

CNN's own line on the list is that data centers made it possible. A $15 million aquatic center with a six-lane pool and waterslides opened a few weeks before the report. The spending on parks ends next year with the Q-Plex, a 143,000-square-foot indoor sports complex.

900 data center jobs and a 6.2% poverty rate in Quincy, Washington

Data centers created around 900 jobs in Quincy for engineers, pipefitters and electricians. According to Washington State analyses cited by CNN, each of those jobs also generates four to six other jobs in construction, retail and local services.

CNN adds that new businesses, nonprofits and neighborhoods have appeared to serve the people moving to town. The poverty rate fell from 29.4% in 2012 to 6.2% in 2024. Patrick Boss of the Port of Quincy, an economic development agency, described the growth as "controlled organically over 20 years."

Data center electricity bills and water use: Grant County’s numbers

CNN takes up the public belief that data centers drive up the cost of electricity. In Quincy, electricity bills have gone up, but large industrial customers such as data centers carry the larger increase.

Power rate increases last year, Grant County (CNN, August 2026)

Residential customers

Up 3.5%

Large industrial customers

Up 9.1%

Grant County is home to Quincy. Data centers and other large users pay for the infrastructure and generation that their large power loads need, and CNN says those costs are not spread to residential customers.

On data center water use, officials say data centers take around 8% of the city's water supply. More than 50% of the water in Quincy goes to food processors. Microsoft partnered with the city to build a $30 million water reuse facility that processes cooling water for data centers and other industries.

Ratepayer Protection Act Fails Senate Vote 57-43 covers a federal bill on who pays for large power loads. The five-year plan for AI data centers abroad is covered in "China AI data centers: $295B plan, 80% local chips."

Quincy, Washington housing and farmworkers in the data center economy

Home prices in Quincy have roughly doubled over the last decade, rising faster than incomes as more people move to town. New single-family neighborhoods have been going up, but the town lacks apartment buildings and rentals. Quincy recently approved a zoning code change that makes it easier to build rentals for low- and middle-income households.

Nina Martinez, executive director of the Latino Civic Alliance in Washington, told CNN that many agricultural workers have missed out on the data center economy. In her words, "A lot of the workforce is coming from other places." On housing she said, "Families have been pushed out."

CNN adds that Quincy's Hispanic population grew from 37% in 1990 to around 75%. It also reports that a large migrant farmworker population works in the town for part of the year.

In CNN's report on the data center economy in Quincy, data centers pay an estimated 57% of the property taxes, and the poverty rate fell. Electricity rates rose by a larger percentage for large industrial customers than for households, home prices rose faster than incomes, and Nina Martinez says many agricultural workers missed out.