County
Maricopa County, Arizona
County ranked by announced AI data-center load
1.5 GW
Announced AI load
Lead operator
Arizona Land Consulting
Resi rate Δ (Arizona Public Service)
+15.8%
Population (2024 ACS)
4.56M
Median HH income (2024 ACS)
$89,300
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Key takeaways
- Maricopa County is 4,491,987 residents, the fourth-largest county in the US. Five publicly announced AI campuses share the Salt River Project and APS service area, including Meta and Apple at Mesa, Microsoft at Goodyear and El Mirage, and Google at Mesa.Source: Census ACS 2023 B01003 + data/sites/data_centers.csv
- Mesa alone had 504,258 residents at the 2020 census, making it bigger than 19 US state capitals and larger than Atlanta proper. Three of the five Maricopa campuses sit inside Mesa city limits.Source: sources[0] (Wikipedia: Mesa, Arizona) + data/sites/data_centers.csv
- Salt River Project's residential rate rose 12.6%, from 11.95 to 13.46 cents per kWh from 2021 to 2023, on 1.05 million residential customers. That is about $163 more per year on a typical household bill.Source: data/cache/utility_rate_yoy.csv (Salt River Project, AZ)
- Median household income in Maricopa is $85,518 and 35.9% of adults hold a bachelor's degree. Home prices rose only 3.1% over three years, a sharp deceleration from the 2020-22 Phoenix run-up.Source: Census ACS 2023 B19013, B15003 + data/cache/realestate_yoy.csv (FIPS 04013)
Local socioeconomics
- 30.9% of Maricopa County residents are Hispanic of any race and 14.3% are foreign-born, the highest immigrant share in this batch. The five-campus AI cluster lands in the Salt River Project and APS service area whose customer base is one of the most Spanish-speaking large metros in the US.Source: Census ACS 2023 B03003_001E, B03003_003E, B05002_001E, B05002_013E (Maricopa County, AZ)
- Median gross rent in Maricopa is $1,587 per month, more than double the Jackson Alabama rent and the highest in this batch. The 35.0% renter share is the cohort that absorbs any utility pass-through immediately, before annual lease renewals reprice.Source: Census ACS 2023 B25064_001E, B25003_001E, B25003_002E (Maricopa County, AZ)
- Manufacturing accounts for only 7.8% of Maricopa jobs against an 11.3% poverty rate. The county is the rare AI host where the data centers do not displace a still-significant manufacturing base, they simply add to a service economy already at 4.5 million people.Source: Census ACS 2023 C24050_001E, C24050_004E, B17001_001E, B17001_002E (Maricopa County, AZ)
- Broadband at home reaches 92.1% of Maricopa households, the highest connectivity rate in the Mountain West group. The Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Google campuses sell capacity to a base that is already a heavy consumer of the end product.Source: Census ACS 2023 B28002_001E, B28002_004E (Maricopa County, AZ)
Campuses in this county