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Places (POIs) visited during this tour

Place #1
Distance: 0.00mi
Map Pin
44895 Prentice Dr, Sterling, VA 20166, USA
POI 1 Tour Image
How AOL Started the Cloud
Look to your left, this is where it all started! What you don't see was the AOL Main HQ, and believe it or not, they’re the reason this whole area became the center of the Internet.

Back in the 1990s, when the web was still in its awkward teenage years, AOL bought one of the first Internet exchange points and moved it right here to Ashburn, Virginia. That single move turned this quiet suburb into a global digital hub.

Once AOL set up shop, everyone wanted to plug in nearby — Internet providers, telecoms, and eventually the tech giants you know today: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and more.

In a way, the modern “cloud” started with that familiar AOL login tone. From dial-up to data centers — it all began here in Ashburn.
Place #2
Distance: 1.03mi
Map Pin
44607 Low Latency Ln, Sterling, VA 20166, USA
POI 2 Tour Image
QTS Ashburn — The Modern Fortress of the Internet
Welcome to QTS Ashburn 2, one of the newest and most powerful data-center campuses in what’s often called Data Center Alley — the beating heart of the Internet.

These two enormous buildings, known as DC1 and DC2, together can draw more than 80 megawatts of electricity — enough to power a small city. Inside are tens of thousands of servers that keep the online world running — from banking systems and business clouds to the social-media apps you probably used this morning.

At first glance, they look like windowless warehouses, but every design choice here has a purpose. The thick concrete walls help control temperature and fire risk. The absence of windows isn’t about secrecy — it’s about stability: sunlight and heat are the enemies of efficiency. Along the sides you’ll spot massive chillers and cooling towers that push cold air under raised floors to keep all that hardware at the perfect temperature. Those fenced-in boxes nearby? Backup generators and battery banks that can take over within seconds if the grid ever hiccups.

Why here? Beneath these quiet streets lies one of the densest intersections of fiber-optic cables in North America. That backbone made Ashburn the ideal place for data centers to cluster, and the ecosystem snowballed.

As for who’s inside — well, QTS keeps its tenant list private, but industry reports make it clear that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, leases capacity in facilities just like this to host U.S. user data. Meta — the company behind Facebook and Instagram — also runs servers in multiple QTS and Digital Realty sites across Ashburn, powering everything from your photo feed to your WhatsApp messages. Financial firms, cloud providers, and cybersecurity companies all share these halls too.

Think of it like a high-security apartment complex for the world’s information — each tenant with its own locked suite, its own power, its own network connection.

It’s not flashy, but it’s one of the most important addresses on Earth. Every photo you post, video you stream, or message you send might pass through this very block of Ashburn — the modern fortress of the Internet.

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Tour itinerary stops | Additional places you'll see on this self-guided tour

Map Pin Place 1 How AOL Started the Cloud
Map Pin Place 2 QTS Ashburn — The Modern Fortress of the Internet
Map Pin Place 3 The Pacific Boulevard Paradox
Map Pin Place 4 Equinix DC11 / Filigree Court cluster
Map Pin Place 5 CenterSquare and Equinix, Beaumeade Circle
Map Pin Place 6 Amazon Web Services
Map Pin Place 7 Digital Realty ACC / Hastings / Chilum cluster
Map Pin Place 8 NTT Global Data Centers
Map Pin Place 9 Databank Data Center
Map Pin Place 10 Sabey Data Centers
Map Pin Place 11 The Invisible Highway Beneath You
Map Pin Place 12 The Data Center Economy: How the Cloud Built a County
Map Pin Place 13 The Power Behind the Cloud
Map Pin Place 14 Compass Loudoun County I Campus
Map Pin Place 15 Google Loudoun County Campus
Map Pin Place 16 Potomac Energy Center
Map Pin Place 17 Philip A. Bolen Memorial Park
Map Pin Place 18 Data Alley Fun Facts
Map Pin Place 19 Vantage Ashburn III (VA3)



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