Start with the basics, tour one inside and out, then watch every answer from the October 7 Data Center Information Forum. No developer, no sales pitch, and no specific project.
Four parts. Go top to bottom, or jump to the one you came for.
What a data center is, in three ideas, and how one gets built.
About 3 minutes 2Take the tourTen stops, inside and out, plus what it sounds like from next door.
About 5 minutes 3Compare itHow one stacks up against a warehouse, a factory, or leaving the field alone.
About 2 minutes 4The forum, in fullEvery answer on video, the full slide deck, and how the room voted.
Browse at your own paceNever seen a data center? Two short pieces cover what one is and how one goes from an empty field to a running building.
If you have never seen a data center, these three ideas carry you through everything else on this site.
Rows of servers that store and process data for the companies renting space: your bank's app, your doctor's records, the show you streamed last night. Almost nobody works inside once it is running.
A small enterprise center draws 1 to 10 megawatts, a colocation center 10 to 100, and a hyperscale campus 100 to 1,000 or more.
A lot of electricity, a way to shed heat, a fiber connection, and a parcel its municipality will approve. Everything on this site hangs off one of those four.
From Tom Beresnyak's Data Center 101 keynote, Penn State Extension, October 7, 2026.
A typical order, not a schedule for any project. Worker counts and traffic from the PA DCED Data Center Planning Toolkit and the trades panel on October 7.
Walk around a typical data center, inside and out, then stand at the property line and listen.
Tap any numbered stop on the picture, or use the list under it. Each stop explains what that part is, what the experts said, why it matters to a community, and what people asked at the forum. Ten stops, about five minutes.
Stand at the property line and switch what is on the other side of the fence. The meter is approximate, the sound is a simulation, and the township sets the limit.
A data center never gets built on a blank slate. It gets built instead of something else on that parcel. Pick the alternative and see how a typical mid-size data center stacks up, weak spots included.
| Data center | Distribution warehouse |
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Typical ranges, not a forecast for any project. Data center figures from the PA DCED Data Center Planning Toolkit and the Hamm Institute employment forecast, both presented at the forum. The honest weak spot is permanent jobs, and it is in the table on purpose.
Everything from October 7, 2026 is here: every audience question that got an answer, both keynotes, the full slide deck, and how the room voted.
Every audience question that got an answer is its own short clip. Pick the one you came for.
All 75 slides shown on October 7, in the order they ran: the welcome, both keynotes, and the panel. Use the arrows, the thumbnails, or your keyboard.
Keynote slides are the work of Tom Beresnyak, Penn State Extension, and Dr. Corey Young, Washington & Jefferson College. The live poll slides are left out because the results are shown below.
Before anyone spoke, people answered a few questions from their phones. Here is the room, one person per vote.
28 people answered. Each figure is one of them.
Top three concerns, 30 people, share of all picks. Bigger bubble, more worry. Tap one to go straight to the answer.
Electricity bills were the biggest worry by a wide margin, which is why Power is Stop 1.
29 people
26 people. One house each.
Live Mentimeter polls from October 7, 2026. Between 26 and 32 people answered each one, so these are the phones in the room, not a survey of the county. The room also submitted 27 questions for the panel with 46 upvotes.
The forum worked because people could ask from their phones instead of a microphone. That box stays open. Ask anything and the Forward Lawrence team will find someone who knows.
