This tiny farming town you’ve never heard of is helping Microsoft sell America on data centers

In central Washington, a farming town of roughly 8,100 people has become an unlikely showcase for America’s data-center boom.

Quincy, long known for potato fields, apple orchards and food-processing plants, has spent two decades attracting some of the world’s largest technology companies.

Microsoft began building data centers there around 20 years ago, drawn by affordable land, the region’s cool climate and abundant hydropower from the Columbia River.

Now the town is becoming central to Microsoft’s response to a backlash against the facilities powering cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

The company this year cited Quincy as proof that data centers can bring tangible benefits to the communities that host them, as residents elsewhere raise alarms over electricity prices, water use and limited local job creation.

ONE OF THE WORLD'S HOTTEST INDUSTRIES IS SPARKING A BLUE-COLLAR JOBS BOOM The economic gains are visible in Quincy.

KUOW reported that years of data-center tax revenue have helped support a state-of-the-art high school and hospital.

The city recently opened a new aquatic center, complete with a six-lane lap pool, lazy river and waterslides, and is planning a separate indoor sports complex.

Data centers are not an employment engine on their own.

A single facility can operate with 50 employees or fewer, KUOW reported.

But Quincy has enough facilities that the sector has become a meaningful employer in aggregate, while also supporting construction, service businesses and the city’s broader tax base.

TRUMP HEADS TOWARD UNLIKELY CLASH WITH CLOSE ALLY OVER FUTURE OF MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR INDUSTRY Microsoft says its new national approach will ask local utilities to set rates high enough to cover data-center energy use and grid upgrades without raising prices for residents.

The company also says future facilities will use closed-loop cooling systems that recycle water rather than drawing from local supplies.

Quincy already has such a system.