Google New Albany data center, New Albany, Ohio

Google's New Albany data center, at 1101 Beech Road SW in New Albany, Licking County, Ohio, was the company's first in the state when it broke ground in 2019 as a $600 million project. For neighbors the issue now is noise: since September 2025 residents near the Google campus have complained to the City of New Albany about its cooling fans, and a permanent fix is not due to be finished until December 2026.

According to the city, Google brought in sound and mechanical engineers within two weeks of the first complaints and has since added sound monitoring, operational changes and sound-dampening materials. It also set up an email address for residents to report noise when they hear it and sends regular updates to city officials to pass on to the public. The permanent fix was scheduled for installation beginning in June 2026 and is designed to meet city noise codes, which limit sound at a site's boundary to the same decibel level as the nearest residential neighborhood.

"We know residents want this resolved immediately, and we share that sense of urgency," the city says on its data center website. Google is not the only operator the city is dealing with: in July 2026 it was notified of periodic noise from Meta's campus south of State Route 161, after a temporary sound wall came down too soon, and that wall is being rebuilt.

Google added data centers in Columbus and Lancaster and planned a $1 billion expansion at New Albany in 2021. In June 2025 it paid $63 million for nearly 85 acres at 2565 Harrison Road NW, about four miles north of the Beech Road campus. A Google spokesperson said of that purchase: "While we do not have a confirmed timeline for development for the site, we want to ensure we have the option to further grow, should our business demand it."

The campus sits in the New Albany International Business Park, which spans 12,000 acres across the Franklin-Licking County line. Since 2010, companies have opened 40 data centers in the park, with 28 more planned or being built, according to the city, for 15 businesses including Google, Meta and Amazon Web Services.

The city requires data center companies to make minimum annual payments in exchange for partial property tax abatement, and caps their water use from Columbus by agreement, community development director Jennifer Chrysler told News 5 Cleveland in May 2026. "It doesn't mean that it's going to be the experience that everyone has," Chrysler said of the city's record.