Our Data-Driven Future: Richmond has the infrastructure to succeed in a connected world

A modern-day gold rush is here in Richmond, says John W. Martin, as the nascent data center industry rises to meet the information needs of the future.

As the president and CEO of RVA757 Connects, however, Martin’s vision goes beyond the capital. He and his nonprofit coalition of business and government leaders see a global internet hub that stretches across the commonwealth, connecting the “megaregion” of Hampton Roads and Richmond to Northern Virginia.

It begins in Virginia Beach and Sandbridge, where four subsea internet cables make landfall, physically connecting sites across America and in Brazil, France and Spain. The data then snakes across Interstate 64 before it reaches the greater Richmond region’s rapidly expanding data center portfolio, which directs most of the information northward to Washington, D.C.

“When you add all these things up,” Martin says about what he calls the I-64 Innovation Corridor, “it really frames this idea of digital infrastructure, and our belief, now more than ever, that those communities that have invested in and created policies supporting development from these big and small companies are going to be the winning cities of tomorrow.”