Caldwell County, North Carolina

County ranked by announced AI data-center load

Undisclosed Announced AI load

Campuses

Lead operator

Google

Resi rate Δ (Duke Energy Carolinas)

+28.3%

Home price Δ (3y)

+23.2%

Property tax Δ (3y)

+9.8%

Population (2024 ACS)

81K

Median HH income (2024 ACS)

$56,425

Key takeaways

Caldwell County is 80,618 residents with a $55,401 median household income and a median age of 45.5. Lenoir, the county seat at 18,352 residents, built its economy on Broyhill Furniture and the broader Catawba Valley furniture cluster before Google arrived in 2008.Source: Census ACS 2023 B01003, B19013, B01002 (FIPS 37027) + sources[0] (Wikipedia: Lenoir, NC)
Duke Energy Carolinas residential rates rose from 10.9 to 13.9 cents per kWh from 2021 to 2023, a 28.3% jump worth about $330 per year on a typical 10,800 kWh household. Duke serves 1.92 million residential customers in North Carolina alone.Source: data/cache/utility_rate_yoy.csv (Duke Energy Carolinas, NC)
Home prices rose 23.2% over three years against a $174,000 median home value, the steepest 3-year home-price delta in any North Carolina AI county we track. Only 18.6% of adults hold a bachelor's degree.Source: data/cache/realestate_yoy.csv (FIPS 37027) + Census ACS 2023 B25077, B15003
Google's Lenoir campus has been operational since 2008, well before the current AI boom. It is the longest-running hyperscaler campus on Duke Energy Carolinas, and the original tax-incentive package generated the local controversy now being replayed in Caldwell's three new neighboring builds in Catawba and Rutherford.Source: data/sites/data_centers.csv (Lenoir) + sources[0]

21.5% of Caldwell County workers are in manufacturing, the highest manufacturing share of any AI host county in this batch. The Catawba Valley furniture and fiber-optic-cable cluster still employs more workers than any service sector.Source: Census ACS 2023 C24050 (FIPS 37027)
Median gross rent in Caldwell is $735 a month, the lowest in this batch. With 26.0% renter households and a poverty rate of 12.7%, any wage-driven rent inflation from the Google Lenoir expansion lands hardest on the third of the county that does not own.Source: Census ACS 2023 B25064, B25003, B17001 (FIPS 37027)
Caldwell County is 86.6% white, 4.1% Black, 6.4% Hispanic, and only 0.5% Asian. Google's longest-running Southeast campus operates in a county that is demographically closer to mid-century Appalachia than to its Atlanta or Charlotte hyperscaler peers.Source: Census ACS 2023 B02001, B03003 (FIPS 37027)
Only 1.2% of Caldwell residents moved in from another state in the past year, the second-lowest interstate migration rate in this batch. Google has spent 17 years operating in a county whose population is not being replenished by newcomers.Source: Census ACS 2023 B07001 (FIPS 37027)