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As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence , members of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government are rewriting and weaponizing history, narrowing the definition of who and what counts as American. Amid the celebrations, our team completed two years of fieldwork in Pennsylvania exploring the myths and realities of data center investment and expansion in one of the foundational states of the American project . This mythic narrative—shared by companies and media outlets alike—attempts to sell a single vision of a future where data centers represent the latest in a long lineage of industrial development in Pennsylvania.

Credit: Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes

Celebratory banner of America’s 250th independence anniversary in Carbon County, Pennsylvania.

Data centers are facilities where data is processed or stored, where computer power is redistributed, where “ the cloud [also known as the internet] touches the ground.” A data center signals…