How a Virginia county wooed Amazon and Boeing

Happenstance had nothing to do with Amazon’s selection of Arlington, Virginia, for its second headquarters in 2018 or Boeing’s announcement last week that it will relocate its headquarters there. County government departments play an important role in attracting major technology companies by offering tax incentives, access to dark fiber and deep talent pools. The underlying reason for the effort is the betterment of all stakeholders, experts say.

“We talk a lot about public/private partnerships. It’s really not that. We’re orchestrating an ecosystem, where, basically, government and private, government, commercial, education, higher ed are all collaborating in a way that benefits one another,” said Jack Belcher, chief information officer for Arlington County. “It’s really determining how each of us can develop win-win situations.”

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Why data centers call Virginia home

Northern Virginia is home to the largest data center market in the world, with a significant percentage of global internet traffic running through Loudoun County alone. The key to this success is two-fold, experts say.

First is history. Vinay Nagpal, president of InterGlobix, a consultancy and advisory firm focused on the convergence of data centers and subsea and terrestrial fiber, points to AOL’s establishment of its headquarters in Dulles in 1996, although the company’s founders set up the company, initially called Quantum Computer Services, in the region 11 years earlier.

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