The Data Center Coalition (DCC) is the membership association for the United States data center industry. It describes its work as public policy advocacy, thought leadership, stakeholder outreach and community engagement on behalf of data center owners and operators (Source: datacentercoalition.org). Headquartered in Virginia, it was established in July 2019 and is led by its president and chief executive, Josh Levi (Source: datacentercoalition.org; blog.vantage-dc.com). In 2026 it has been the industry's principal organized voice in state legislative fights over data-center siting, taxation and electricity costs, including the California bill package signed in September 2026.
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Type | Nonprofit trade association |
| Established | July 2019 |
| Headquarters | Virginia |
| President and CEO | Josh Levi (since 2019) |
| Members | Data center owners and operators, plus "large end user" members |
| Website | datacentercoalition.org |
Overview and history
Levi described DCC in a February 2020 interview as "a non-profit trade association that we established in July 2019 to serve as the voice of the data center sector," governed at the time by a 14-person board drawn from its founding member companies, all of them data center owners or operators. He said the group was based in Virginia because Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world and every member had facilities there, and that its early work consisted of meetings with state and local policymakers, data center tours for local stakeholders, and a meeting with then-Governor Ralph Northam (Source: blog.vantage-dc.com).
Levi was previously vice president for policy at the Northern Virginia Technology Council, where he spent nearly 20 years, before taking the DCC role in 2019 (Source: datacentercoalition.org).
Membership
DCC's membership page groups members into tiers. As of September 2026 it listed, among data center owner and operator members, an executive tier including Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, Digital Realty, Equinix, QTS, CyrusOne, Iron Mountain, NTT, Switch, Vantage, Compass, EdgeConneX, STACK and CloudHQ; a board tier including Meta, Aligned, CoreSite, EdgeCore, Prologis and Stream Data Centers; a partner tier including Crusoe, IREN, Cologix and Prime; and a general tier including Applied Digital, Cisco, Core Scientific, Oracle and Starwood Capital. It separately listed Anthropic, OpenAI and CoreWeave as "Large End User Members," and pre-operational associate members including Nscale. In January 2025 it launched an Industry Advisory Council for businesses with a stake in the industry (Source: dcc.silkstart.com).
Policy positions and advocacy
DCC's stated priorities are a competitive tax, business and regulatory climate for data center investment; "clean, reliable and affordable power"; workforce development; and "pragmatic and workable" policies on siting, land use and zoning (Source: datacentercoalition.org). In 2020 Levi listed competitive tax structure, competitive energy rates, grid reliability and modernization, renewable-energy policy, workforce development, fiber deployment and business-friendly land-use and permitting as focus areas (Source: blog.vantage-dc.com).
California (2026). After Governor Gavin Newsom signed seven data-center bills on September 21, 2026 (California data-center bill package — chaptered texts (Chapters 434–440, Statutes of 2026)), imposing disclosure requirements on electricity use, water consumption, land use and workforce needs and aiming to keep new generation and grid-upgrade costs from shifting onto other ratepayers, DCC said its members were committed to responsible development but warned that the measures could push projects to other states. Khara Boender, a director of government affairs for the group, said that "Legislation such as these create significant uncertainty and introduces potentially duplicative requirements that make doing business in California an unattractive proposition for data centers and other industries," and that the laws "are likely to further limit data center development in California — an already declining market—which pushes job creation, clean energy deployment, and tax revenue to neighboring states" (Source: reuters.com).
Virginia (2026). Nicole Riley of DCC testified in January 2026 against Senate Bill 94, sponsored by Senator Danica Roem, which sought to keep future data centers away from residential areas; she said it unfairly targeted one industry over other large projects and pointed instead to Senate Bill 130 by Senator Adam Ebbin, which would allow localities to require environmental and sound impact studies before approving data center permits. "We believe this is the best approach to address the need for localities to have more tools when approving permits related to projects for high energy use facilities," Riley said. The committee referred SB 94 to Senate Finance on an 8–5 vote with one abstention (Source: virginiamercury.com).
Texas (2026). At a Texas House hearing on data centers in April 2026, Dan Dorio of DCC testified that the largest data center tenants in Texas were Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Oracle (Source: houstonpublicmedia.org).
Relationships
- related: Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics — the state and local siting, tax and ratepayer debates in which DCC advocates for the industry
- related: AI Data Centers — the infrastructure its members build and operate
- related: Energy and Electric Power Sector — electricity pricing and grid cost allocation are central to its advocacy
- related: Gavin Newsom — signed the September 2026 California package DCC opposed
- related: California data-center laws (2026) — the September 2026 California data-center statutes
- related: Anthropic, OpenAI, CoreWeave — listed as large end-user members
- related: Stream Data Centers — board-tier member