Google Douglas County data center, Lithia Springs, Georgia

Google's data center in Lithia Springs, Douglas County, Georgia, was the company's first data center in the state and is one of the first in the industry to cool its servers with recycled industrial water. In March 2025 Douglas County commissioners voted 4-1 for a 90-day moratorium on new data center applications after a developer sought 11 buildings and three warehouse data centers in western Douglas County, a project three times the size of the Mall of Georgia. The Lithia Springs site is operating today, though Google's own website gives two different years for when it began work there, 2003 and 2007.

Google's site says it began building its Douglas County data center in 2003; elsewhere on the same site it calls the facility, established in 2007, its first data center in Georgia. In 2015 Google announced a $300 million expansion next to the existing 500,000-square-foot building, adding 25 jobs to the more than 350 people it then employed there, after county officials approved a package of tax breaks. "Much like Google, Douglas County continues to rapidly grow", said then-commission chairman Tom Worthan at the time. Google says it has committed more than $3 billion of investment in Georgia since 2003.

"Next thing you know, I have 12 in my backyard," said Amy McCoy, a realtor who helped bring one of the county's first data centers to Lithia Springs. "This area deserves so much more." The moratorium covered new rezonings, special use permits and variances for data centers larger than 50,000 square feet, and commissioners set the pause at 90 days, running through about June 2025. It followed a fight over a data center in the rural Winston community that commissioners approved against their planning staff's advice.

Google says its Douglas County site uses recycled wastewater for cooling, and that company-wide it aims to replenish more water than it uses by 2030. "We have a really strong commitment to protecting watersheds," said Ben Townsend, Google's global head of infrastructure and sustainability, "but we can't speak for everyone else in the space." The state Public Service Commission voted in December 2025 to let Georgia Power add nearly 10 gigawatts of power production, mostly for data centers, and critics fear ratepayers will help cover the cost. Any new data center proposal for the county, including an expansion of the Lithia Springs site, goes before the Douglas County Board of Commissioners.