He’s talking tough on big tech—but banking on their servers.
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, a freshman Democrat who represents Northern Virginia, is sounding the alarm about the large data centers that have cropped up in his district, blasting them as “invasive” pollutants that could attract cyberattacks. Those centers support more than 78,000 jobs in Northern Virginia. And while Subramanyam doesn’t want them in his backyard, he owns hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stock in the companies that own them, records show.
Subramanyam is sitting on at least $630,000 worth of stock in companies like Amazon, Meta, and NVIDIA, with holdings potentially in excess of $1 million, according to congressional financial disclosures. The companies own or provide critical support to a lion’s share of the Virginia data centers, which help power the internet by storing user data for some of America’s largest companies. Subramanyam’s district is home to more data centers than any other in the country—but during a recent committee hearing, he portrayed them as a creeping menace.
“They seemed like a great idea at the time … but our community is paying the price now, and we’re a cautionary tale for the rest of the country,” Subramanyam said, calling the centers “not great for the communities.”
“[In]the next five years alone, data centers can increase customers bills by up to $276 a year, and people’s utility bills may double in the next 7 to 10 years just to power data centers,” Subramanyam said. “And the environmental impact is real as well. These green spaces are disappearing. Pollution is rising and water supplies are being stretched thin. It’s making reaching our clean energy goals in Virginia nearly impossible.”
“And it’s also a security risk,” the congressman continued, warning that Russia or other malign actors would be tempted to target the data center hub which had emerged in his district. “You just look at the Ukraine war. When Russia failed to hack Ukraine’s telecom networks, what did they target? They targeted the data centers.”
A combination of factors—including tax incentives, an abundance of skilled labor, good climate, and proximity to cable internet infrastructure—has made Northern Virginia an ideal spot for the tech sector’s data centers. Should they move elsewhere, Subramanyam’s stock portfolio would likely rebound—and the area he represents would lose some $31 billion in economic output, according to the Northern Virginia Technology Council.
Subramanyam specifically holds at least $500,000 in NVIDIA and at least $130,000 more in Amazon and Meta, according to his most recent personal financial disclosures.
Amazon alone maintains at least 93 data centers in Northern Virginia, according to DataCenters.com, a third-party monitoring website. Meta’s data center in Sandston, Va., occupies 450,000 square feet and cost $1 billion, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. And while NVIDIA does not own centers outright, they play an integral role in the data center ecosystem. The company’s NVIDIA DGX-Ready Data Center program partners with centers by providing coveted certifications guaranteeing they are optimized to handle the various demands and requirements of their parent companies.
Rep. Nick Langworthy (R., N.Y.) sent a message to the companies operating data centers in Subramanyam’s district.
“We need to focus on keeping America competitive and powering our future,” he told the Washington Free Beacon. “If Rep. Subramanyam is too foolish to want these great jobs in his district, bring them to mine!”
Subramanyam did not respond to a request for comment.
