Ex-Radio DJ Built World's Largest Data Center Hub in Virginia
Loudoun County's ~200 data centers spanning 49M sq ft trace back to one unlikely economic development chief.
A former radio DJ turned county official quietly built the biggest data center market on the planet. Buddy Rizer, executive director for economic development in Virginia's Loudoun County, is the unlikely architect behind a sprawling digital infrastructure empire.
The numbers are staggering. Loudoun County now hosts roughly 200 data center buildings covering approximately 49 million square feet. That makes it the single largest concentration of data center capacity anywhere in the world.
Rizer's journey from broadcasting booth to economic powerhouse reads like a tech fairy tale with a zoning permit. He leveraged his position to attract massive investment into the county, transforming Northern Virginia into the undisputed capital of cloud infrastructure.
The Wall Street Journal profiled Rizer's role in shaping this market — a reminder that sometimes the most consequential figures in tech never write a line of code.