Data Center Registry
Microsoft Hickory Data Center
Hickory, Catawba County, North Carolina · All 45 Microsoft sites · Every Microsoft case on our tracker
Microsoft Hickory Data Center is a data center under construction in Hickory, North Carolina (Catawba County), operated by Microsoft. The public record puts it at announced November 2022, 160 acres.
Every line on this page traces to a public source listed at the bottom. Where a figure was looked for and not found, the row says so. A blank is never a zero.
Facility record
Under construction
- Operator
- Microsoft
- Facility type
- Data center
- Location
- Hickory, Catawba County, NC
- Coordinates
- 35.7333, -81.3443 (approximate)
- Power capacity
- Not established from a public source
- Land
- 160 acres
- Investment
- Not established from a public source
- Announced
- November 2022
- Utility
- Not established from a public source
- Cooling
- Not established
- Water use
- Not established from a public source
- Jobs
- Not established from a public source
- Public subsidy
- Not established from a public source
- Community reception
- No reception on record
- Source confidence
- Confirmed by multiple independent sources or official documentation
Timeline from the record
Newest first. Record entries come from the filings and reports the registry cites. Coverage entries are headlines from publisher feeds we monitor daily, linked to the outlet; last checked September 14, 2026.
- March 2, 2026Under constructionConstruction resumed across the Catawba County campuses after a roughly 10-month pause. Source: Go Foothills
- November 2022ProposedAnnounced as part of Microsoft's four-site Catawba County plan; ~160 acres west of US 321 adjacent to Hickory Lincolnton Hwy (a smaller ~16-acre Tate Blvd parcel was also identified). Source: Data Center Frontier
Opposition and litigation at this site
Nothing on record as of August 15, 2026. No lawsuit, organized opposition, or contested hearing over Microsoft Hickory Data Center in Hickory, Catawba County, North Carolina appears in the sources this registry tracks. That is an absence in our sources rather than a finding that none exists, and local opposition often predates any coverage a national dataset would pick up.
If you live near this site and something is happening that this page does not show, that is worth telling us. Send us the document and it goes in the record with the source attached. For sites where opposition is already established, see every contested site we track.
Power and water
Catawba County and the City of Hickory state the Microsoft facilities are expected to rely primarily on less water-intensive cooling methods, and project roughly 1% of Hickory's daily water production capacity once fully operational (figure covers the county-wide Microsoft development, not this site alone).
Notes on the record
Coordinates are a Hickory city-level approximation, the sources describe the parcel only as ~160 acres west of US 321 adjacent to Hickory Lincolnton Hwy. No per-site capacity or investment disclosed.
What the record does not establish, and the document that would
In every fight on our tracker the decisive fact came out of a public records request. These are the requests for this site.
- Power capacity in megawatts
- Tax abatements or other public subsidy
- Permanent jobs promised
- How the community has received it
- Which utility serves it
Which document closes each gap
- Power capacity in megawatts
- The utility's large load service agreement, the interconnection request in the grid operator's queue, or the electrical site plan in the permit file.
- Tax abatements or other public subsidy
- The abatement, PILOT, or development agreement approved by the county, city, or development authority, and the state's data center sales tax exemption certificate if one was issued.
- Permanent jobs promised
- The economic development application or incentive agreement, which usually states a job commitment and a clawback.
- How the community has received it
- Planning commission and governing body minutes, public comment records, and any petition or lawsuit filed in the county.
- Which utility serves it
- The electric service agreement or the utility's filing with the state public utility commission.
Have one of these documents? Send it to us and we will add it to the record with attribution.
Other sites within 30 miles
Distances are between recorded coordinates, many of which are a city or county centroid, so treat them as approximate. Cumulative load on one utility and one aquifer is the question a planning commission rarely asks.
- Microsoft Conover Data Center · Conover · Microsoft7 mi · Under construction
- Apple Maiden Data Center (iCloud) · Maiden · Apple11 mi · Operating
- Microsoft Maiden Data Center · Maiden · Microsoft12 mi · Under construction
- Google Lenoir Data Center · Lenoir · Google16 mi · Operating
- Compass Statesville Campus · Statesville · Compass Datacenters26 mi · Proposed · 500 MW · Contested
Questions people ask about this site
Is there opposition to the Microsoft Hickory Data Center in Hickory?
Nothing on record as of August 15, 2026. No lawsuit, organized opposition, or contested hearing over Microsoft Hickory Data Center in Hickory, Catawba County, North Carolina appears in the sources this registry tracks. That is an absence in our sources rather than a finding that none exists, and local opposition often predates any coverage a national dataset would pick up.
Has anyone filed a lawsuit over the Microsoft Hickory Data Center?
No lawsuit over Microsoft Hickory Data Center appears in the record we track as of August 15, 2026. Residents most often reach a lawyer over water supply, well drawdown, noise from cooling plant, property value, or a rezoning approved without the notice the ordinance required. If any of that is happening near this site, it is worth a review whether or not a case has been filed yet.
How much water does Microsoft Hickory Data Center use?
No water withdrawal figure for Microsoft Hickory Data Center is on record here. Cooling is recorded as unknown, which is the strongest available clue: closed loop and air cooled plant draw far less than evaporative cooling. We leave the number blank rather than estimate one.
Who operates Microsoft Hickory Data Center, and how big is it?
Microsoft is the operator on record. We hold 45 sites for that company across the registry. No capacity figure is on record for this site. The site is recorded at 160 acres.
How to cite this page
SueDataCenters.org Data Center Registry, "Microsoft Hickory Data Center," updated August 15, 2026, https://suedatacenters.org/data-centers/microsoft-hickory-catawba-county-nc.
Facility data from Compute Atlas (E. Kubiak), version 1.32.0 (September 7, 2026), licensed CC BY 4.0, record https://www.compute-atlas.com/facilities/microsoft-hickory-catawba-county-nc, retrieved September 14, 2026.
Corrections with a public source are welcome at the Compute Atlas record or through our contact page. The whole registry is available as CSV and JSON under CC BY 4.0.
Sources for this record
As compiled and cited by Compute Atlas, with our own reporting appended. Archived links are used where the original has moved.
- 1.Microsoft Plans $1 Billion Campus in North Carolina Cloud Cluster · Data Center Frontier · retrieved August 15, 2026
- 2.City Releases Joint Press Statement on Microsoft · City of Conover, NC · retrieved August 15, 2026
- 3.Microsoft restarts $1B data center in Catawba County · Go Foothills · retrieved August 15, 2026
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