Virginia Economic Review

When executives at Traditional Medicinals decided to build an East Coast manufacturing and processing operation, they cast a wide net.

To propel its growth in Virginia, Harris Healthcare is forging partnerships internationally. “A big part of our strategy is to grow in our current international markets, but also expand into new markets,” said Jeremy Trabucco, executive vice president at Harris Healthcare, based in Herndon.

Steven Brint is a distinguished professor of sociology and public policy at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of “Two Cheers for Higher Education.”

Northern Virginia has long been known as the data center capital of the world, owing to its status as one of the original four Network Access Points (NAP).

Tad Deriso is president and CEO of Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corporation (MBC), a South Boston-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that has built an advanced open-access fiber optic network in Southern Virginia.

Microsoft's Investments in Boydton and South Boston and its Regional Partnerships are Positioning the Region as a Tech Destination A century ago, South Boston was a tobacco-producing stalwart. In 1927 alone, the town accounted for more than 20 million pounds in tobacco sales.

Several Virginia higher education institutions now offer courses to help students and working professionals learn how to use data to inform decision-making and solve problems — and some are helping to shape research that could ultimately impact medical, financial, and numerous other fields.

How Virginia Became the Data Center Capital of the World Virginia is home to the largest assemblage of data centers in the world, with Northern Virginia alone accounting for more than 100 (out of 504 known hyperscale data centers worldwide) that total more than 13.5 million square feet of data center space.

Susie Adams is chief technology officer for federal government business at Microsoft. She oversees and implements the technical strategy for the technology giant’s Department of Defense, civilian, and intelligence community businesses.

Around the world, servers hum in the dark, churning through data that may have started as store security footage, a tweet, or a blood pressure reading. In the end, this data tells a story about people — how they think, how they make choices, and what risks they’re willing to take.

Joel Kotkin is the Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism.

Kevin Scott is chief technology officer and executive vice president, technology and research, at Microsoft, and the author of the 2020 book “Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley — Making AI Serve Us All,” which discusses how artificial intelligence can promote growth and benefit all of society.