Northwest Indiana has never been a spectator in America’s economic story. Region Hoosiers have forged the steel, built the machinery, moved the freight and powered the factories that made modern life possible. Today, the infrastructure at the center of economic growth looks different. It includes servers, fiber, and the power generation and transmission infrastructure needed to keep them – and our communities – running reliably. This new wave of investment and jobs will determine America’s leadership, and Indiana’s role in it.
As a former four-term Iowa state senator, I’ve watched my own state navigate the same wave of data center investment now arriving in Indiana. Iowa’s experience, both the wins and the lessons on ratepayer protection, grid planning and community benefit, offers a useful vantage point on the choices Hoosiers are weighing right now. But the clearest lesson from Iowa is that states that engage early and set smart terms come out ahead, while those that hesitate watch the investment head elsewhere.
That is why Indiana should welcome responsible data center development. These projects are not a departure from a proud industrial heritage. They are the next chapter of it.
The opportunity is already real. Amazon Web Services announced plans for an $11 billion campus near New Carlisle, the largest planned capital investment announcement in Indiana history, with at least 1,000 jobs projected. Google announced a $2 billion Fort Wayne data center expected to create up to 200 permanent jobs, along with paid skilled-trades training through Ivy Tech. Those headline numbers matter, but the wider impact matters too: years of work for electricians, operating engineers, laborers, pipefitters, equipment suppliers, security firms, landscapers and local service businesses.
This builds on Northwest Indiana’s industrial workforce. The region has a deep history of steel, manufacturing, construction and skilled trades. Data center investment provides another opportunity to put that highly trained workforce to work on major infrastructure projects.
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Some critics point out that a data center does not employ as many people after construction as a factory of similar size. That is a fair point, but honesty cuts both ways; the factory of the past is a memory, not a reality. We aren’t going back to the future, so this is not a reason to reject the entire sector. Data centers bring unusually large, long-lived capital investment. When agreements are structured well, that investment can expand the local tax base, support schools and public safety, improve roads and utilities, and create a durable market for skilled technical work.
Indiana is well positioned to compete, literally as the crossroads of America. Indiana sits near major population centers and transportation corridors. With a deep construction workforce, strong community colleges and universities, and generations of experience delivering large industrial projects. And Northern Indiana has something every growing business needs: communities that know how to build, operate and maintain critical infrastructure.
Data centers and advanced manufacturing will require more generation, transmission and grid infrastructure. Indiana should build what is needed for reliable, affordable power while ensuring the data centers pay their fair share. Growth should be designed to strengthen the grid.
Indiana is beginning to show how that can work. In June, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission approved a northern Indiana service agreement built around separating the financial risks of serving a very large data center customer from existing NIPSCO customers. The order also approved a mechanism expected to return substantial value to other customers through bill credits and requires the new customer to fund transmission investments serving its load. That is the right principle: growth should pay its way and leave the host community and existing customers stronger.
Indiana should not confuse protecting ratepayers with stopping growth. Saying no to new electricity demand does nothing to strengthen the grid. The better answer is to use that growth to support the generation, transmission and distribution investments Indiana needs anyway and to structure those investments so new customers bear the costs they create.
The same principle should guide workforce development. Data center operators can partner with Ivy Tech, Purdue University Northwest, local high schools, building trades and veterans’ programs to create visible pathways into construction, electrical, mechanical, cybersecurity and facility-operations careers. Leaders should focus on jobs you can raise a family on, an upwardly mobile career, coupled with rewarding work.
If Indiana just says no, it will turn away major investments, minimizing its business competitive advantage. The demand will not disappear; the jobs, tax base and capital investment will simply go somewhere else. The better choice is to compete and to set the terms of competition so development respects ratepayers, land, water and neighboring communities, while strengthening the energy infrastructure that every Hoosier depends upon.
For more than a century, Indiana has answered when the country needed builders. Data centers provide Hoosiers with another opportunity to lead by taking a national need, putting Hoosiers to work meeting it and building the reliable energy system necessary to sustain it.
We should invest, make growth pay its fair share and build enough reliable power to support both existing Hoosiers and the industries that want to call Indiana home.
The business case is strong, the benefits are real, and Indiana can once again show America what it means to build what comes next.
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Jeff Danielson is a former Iowa state senator and the current vice president of the Advocacy Clean Grid Association.