Washoe County, Nevada

County ranked by announced AI data-center load

Undisclosed Announced AI load

Campuses

Lead operator

Google

Resi rate Δ (NV Energy)

+6.9%

Home price Δ (3y)

+6.3%

Property tax Δ (3y)

+10.6%

Population (2024 ACS)

497K

Median HH income (2024 ACS)

$88,096

Key takeaways

Washoe County has 491,770 residents and a median household income of $85,600, both the highest of any AI county outside the Pacific Northwest tech corridor. The Tahoe Reno Industrial Center east of Sparks spans 107,000 acres, the largest industrial park in the United States.Source: Census ACS 2023 B01003, B19013 (Washoe County, NV) + sources[0] (Wikipedia: Tahoe Reno Industrial Center)
Google bought 1,200 acres at the TRI Center for its Storey County campus. The same park already hosts Tesla's Gigafactory Nevada, Switch, Walmart, and Panasonic battery production behind a private power network of more than 900 MW.Source: sources[0] (Wikipedia: Tahoe Reno Industrial Center) + data/sites/data_centers.csv
NV Energy's Nevada Power residential rate rose from 14.3 to 15.3 cents per kWh between 2021 and 2023, a 6.9% jump worth about $107 per year on a typical household. Sierra Pacific Power, the NV Energy subsidiary that actually serves Reno, posted a sharper 8.0% rise over the same period.Source: data/cache/utility_rate_yoy.csv (Nevada Power Co and Sierra Pacific Power Co, NV)
Property tax assessments rose 10.6% over three years, sharper than the 6.3% home price gain. Apple's Reno Technology Park added a second Sparks campus that runs on NV Energy alongside the Google site, with neither operator disclosing the actual draw.Source: data/cache/property_tax_yoy.csv (FIPS 32031) + data/cache/realestate_yoy.csv + data/sites/data_centers.csv

25.6% of Washoe County residents are Hispanic and 5.6% are Asian, with a 65.5% white share. Reno is the most Hispanic of the Northwest tech-corridor AI host counties and the only one where the Hispanic share exceeds 20%.Source: Census ACS 2023 B02001, B03003 (FIPS 32031)
40.5% of Washoe County households rent rather than own at a median gross rent of $1,507 a month, a stack much closer to Clark NV than to the rural northern Nevada baseline. The Tahoe Reno Industrial Center wage premium runs through this rental market.Source: Census ACS 2023 B25003, B25064 (FIPS 32031)
9.6% of Washoe workers are in manufacturing, a higher share than Clark NV's 3.9% even though Reno is one-fifth the population. Tesla Gigafactory and the Panasonic battery line at TRI are the visible drivers behind that ratio.Source: Census ACS 2023 C24050 (FIPS 32031)
3.6% of Washoe residents moved in from another state in the past year, the highest interstate-migration rate of any Nevada AI county. The Bay Area to Reno corridor is still feeding labor into the Google and Apple builds.Source: Census ACS 2023 B07001 (FIPS 32031)