NORFOLK, Va., May 11 -- Old Dominion University issued the following news release:
By Jonathan Heeter
Jay Belknap (B.S. '26) spent his career learning to build and maintain a power grid for farms and sawmills. Now, the upcoming Old Dominion University graduate is figuring out how to run data centers on it.
As an associate engineer at Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative (MEC), a member-owned nonprofit utility serving roughly 30,000 customers across rural southern Virginia, Jay sits at the intersection of old infrastructure and explosive new demand.
Data centers are migrating south from Northern Virginia along the I-95 and I-85 corridors, chasing cheaper land, fiber access and available water for cooling. They're landing in places like Meckl...