Inside the neighborhood living on the edge of America’s tech frontier

ASHBURN, Va. — First came the explosions, the heavy machinery and the red dust that coated the neighborhood. Soon after, towering, windowless buildings emerged just beyond a thin row of trees.

Months after the construction noise faded, the silence gave way to a steady mechanical hum.

For homeowners on the tucked-away cul-de-sac of Statesboro Place in Loudoun County, Virginia, suburban life now shares a fence line with the infrastructure powering America’s artificial intelligence (AI) boom.

The facilities behind the neighborhood are operated by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, two of the world’s largest cloud computing companies.

“It’s like 150 feet away...