Microsoft Columbia (Quincy) data center, Quincy, Washington

Microsoft's data center campus in Quincy, a farming city on the Columbia River in Grant County, Washington, is one of eight in town whose taxes have rebuilt local services. Microsoft began building what was called one of the world's largest data centers there in 2006, drawn by cheap hydroelectric power, and twenty years later the company holds Quincy up as its national model.

In January 2026 Microsoft promised to ask utilities to charge data centers enough to cover their own power and network upgrades without raising household bills, to cool new buildings with closed-loop water rather than local supply, and to take no local tax incentives. "If you want to visit what's probably the nicest high school in the state of Washington, you don't go to the neighborhood where Microsoft's headquarters is based," said company president Brad Smith. "You don't go next door to Amazon, you go to Quincy."

Quincy collected $9.8 million in taxes in 2018 and $20 million in 2024. Total city revenues rose from $6 million in 2006 to $47 million in 2024, and state representative Alex Ybarra, who grew up there, says data centers now pay 57 percent of all the tax the city collects. The population has grown from 5,300 to 8,200, with a new library, police station, medical center, fire and ambulance stations and high school.

The eight campuses around town, run by Microsoft, Sabey, Vantage, H5, CyrusOne, NTT Data and Oath, use 37 percent of the Grant County Public Utility District's power generation. Each building can run with 50 employees or fewer, but former mayor Patty Martin says the benefits may not hold up. "What about 10 years, 20 years from now, and these facilities are still here and the electrical grid, because now there's more people, there's more electric cars, there's not as much water running in the river because the snow packs aren't there," she said.

In 2012 the state Pollution Control Hearings Board ordered Microsoft and other Quincy data centers to study the health impacts of diesel particle pollution from their backup generators. Martin, who pushed for the air quality rules over a decade ago, said she still does not think the permit limits are being enforced, and that she can see a Microsoft facility from her kitchen window.

Microsoft, the largest of the Quincy operators, employs about 400 people there and marked its 20th year in town by donating $200,000 to local nonprofits. The company's pledge to keep other ratepayers' bills from rising now depends on the utilities that set rates, and in Quincy that is the Grant County Public Utility District.