Data centers in Cook County, Illinois: 25 projects mapped

The county's biggest concentration of data centers is not downtown but in the suburb of Elk Grove Village, near O'Hare, where ten projects on this record share an industrial corridor, including campuses run by Aligned, Digital Realty, Microsoft, Prime, STACK, Stream and T5. Most have not said publicly what stage they are at or how much power they will use.

In the suburbs the fights are site by site. In Hoffman Estates, Karis Critical wanted to rezone 186 acres at 4800 West Higgins Road, and on June 30, 2026 the landowner withdrew the application after residents learned that village staff had discussed it with the developer for about 18 months before it was made public, and that Village Manager Eric Palm had signed a letter pledging staff support. In July, Cicero's trustees passed resolutions opposing two rumored data centers, including one at Hawthorne Race Course in neighboring Stickney, saying they want none built anywhere near the town of more than 80,000 people.

The costs are what residents keep raising. ComEd customers' monthly charges rose about 12 percent in June, after double-digit increases the summer before, and ComEd's chief executive said in June that proposed data centers in Northern Illinois had requested 33 gigawatts. "If we're just looking at the impacts that data centers have on our electricity costs, there's not much the city of Chicago can do," said Sarah Moskowitz, executive director of the Citizen's Utility Board, who wants the state to act. Springfield has not: the POWER Act, which would have made data centers report water use, sign community benefit agreements and pay for their own renewable power, died without a vote when the session ended on May 31, and Gov. JB Pritzker paused new state data center tax incentives from July 1. State Sen. Darby Hills of Barrington Hills has filed Senate Bill 1050, which would bar data centers within three miles of a residential community without its consent.

The City Council still has to decide whether to take up Johnson's moratorium. Southside Together held a rally at 91st Street and Commercial Avenue on September 12, and both the POWER Act and Hills's bill are expected back in the fall veto session; until then, nothing proposed in Cook County is subject to the water reporting, community agreements or energy requirements the POWER Act contained.