Microsoft’s Clean Energy Reversal Collides with Virginia’s Climate Goals

Inside Climate News · By Charles Paullin · last updated June 15, 2026 – 1:04 AM

Amid a data center boom in the state, the tech giant backpedals on a key climate promise.

By Charles Paullin

One of the world’s most profitable technology companies could be abandoning an ambitious clean-energy goal in Virginia as it races to build electricity-hungry data centers. Several of the company’s facilities are already operating in Virginia, the data center capital of the world, and more are planned, creating a tension with the state’s own climate commitments.

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