The big reason that data centers "quadrupled" was better documentation, not some massive influx of spending. The government extensively audited data centers in recent years and found numerous ones. When I was in the government, there were no "data centers" on our campus, but there were at least 10 "server rooms" or "labs" that shared a lot of characteristics. In the past few years, people got really worked up about counting data centers, hence a lot of marginal areas were sucked in. Hint: it made the reduction targets a lot easier if you include a bunch of closets and stuff you wanted to get rid of anyway.

This article takes a handful of random facts and discovers a conspiracy instead of actually asking someone who knows something about government IT.