Connecticut Firm Plans $6B Data Center in Pulaski County

A rendering of one of the buildings at Avaio Digital's planned $6 billion data center in Pulaski County (Photo provided by Avaio Digital)

A Connecticut development company plans to build a $6 billion data center in south Pulaski County. Once completed, the massive facility will be the largest economic development project in Arkansas history.

Avaio Digital of Stamford, Connecticut, plans to locate the data center on 760 wooded acres near Interstate 530 and 145th Street.

Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of this year with the first phase of the data center “complete and energized” in June 2027, the company said in a news release.

The center is the fifth large-scale data center project in Arkansas following previous announcements of projects in West Memphis, Conway, Clarksville and a separate project at the Little Rock Port.

Avaio Digital will lease the developed site to one or more large-scale computing companies known as hyperscalers who will use it to facilitate computing functions like AI and cloud computing.

The project is expected to grow to $21 billion with 500 permanent jobs over the course of three phases.

“Avaio Digital’s $6 billion data center hub represents the largest economic investment in Arkansas’ history and sets the Natural State up to become a technology powerhouse that can compete with any state in the nation,” Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Power, Fiber and Workforce

Avaio Digital has acquired the Pulaski County property and has executed a contract with Entergy Arkansas for 150 megawatts of power for the site. Avaio project manager Tom Nesel told Arkansas Business that access to power is the most difficult hurdle in data center development and Entergy Arkansas had power available at attractive rates.

Nesel said Arkansas also has low-carbon power that is attractive to the large-scale companies that want to reduce their carbon footprint.

Avaio Digital is working with Entergy Arkansas to add another 420 megawatts, although a contract for that is not yet in place. Avaio Digital also plans to add another 500 megawatts of on-site generation.

The company was also drawn to the site because it is near downtown Little Rock and the area has an educated workforce. The site also has access to fibers that run along I-530 and along 145th Street, giving the site two grid connections, which Nesel said is attractive to data center tenants.

Representatives of the Little Rock Regional Chamber identified the site more than three years ago and asked Arnett Construction Co., the owner of a large tract of land within the larger site, for permission to market the site to developers. Avaio noticed the site shortly after chamber officials made it available on a site selection database.

“Over three years ago, our team surveyed sites across the region and worked with land owners to market properties with the goal of landing projects like this multi-billion dollar investment,” Little Rock Regional Chamber President and CEO Jay Chesshir said. “This property was one we identified, marketed, and helped attract a major investment, which achieved a major milestone today.”

The project’s first phase is expected to add 77 permanent jobs, in addition to construction jobs. The jobs will primarily be focused on tech and engineering to maintain the equipment, including equipment used to cool the facility, Nesel said.

“It is our intention that this extraordinary 760-acre site in the Little Rock area will be both a major pole of data center capacity and an engine of sustained economic and technological momentum for Arkansas,” Avaio Digital CEO Mark McComiskey said.

Designed With Care

The site will include vegetative buffers and walls to reduce the impact of noise, a common complaint about data centers. The buildings are planned to sit roughly 600 feet from the property line, surrounded by woods. The first building will be several hundred feet from the nearest residential dwelling.

Because data centers must keep the computing technology cool, Avaio Digital will use chillers, similar to air conditioners, to cool the facility but Nesel said the company will use chillers with low ambient noise levels.

The company has conducted sound tests that have determined the noise generated by the facility will not be louder than the level of ambient noise that currently exists at the property’s boundary, Nesel said.

“We want to be good neighbors first,” Nesel said.

The company has also worked with Central Arkansas Water to make sure the site has adequate water available.

The project is being designed by the architecture firm CI Design of Dallas and will be built by Yates Construction of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and Nabholz Construction of Conway.

Privately Financed

The project has not received any public financial contributions, Nesel said. The project is being financed by Avaio with its investors putting up 20% and debt making up the other 80% that will be paid back by the project’s cash flow, Nesel said.

The project has taken advantage of a new state law that allows for deductions on sales and use taxes for data center equipment. A property tax abatement is possible but has not been approved, said Jack Thomas, vice president of economic development at the Little Rock Regional Chamber.

Avaio Digital intends to work with the chamber’s Academies of Central Arkansas program to reach local high school students and with technical colleges and community colleges to develop programs that prepare students to work at the facility.

Regional Data Boom

Arkansas and surrounding states have been a hotspot for data centers in recent years. Google is developing a $4 billion data center on 1,100 acres in West Memphis. Three other large-scale data centers are being developed in Conway, Clarksville and Little Rock but the companies behind those facilities have not made their names public.

Elon Musk’s xAI is developing two large data centers in Memphis and another in nearby Southaven, Mississippi, where the company has also acquired a former natural gas power plant. The $20 billion data center in Mississippi will be the largest corporate investment in the state’s history, the state’s governor said Thursday.

In north Louisiana, Facebook parent company Meta is building a $27 billion data center in Richland Parish, about 60 miles south of Crossett.

Avaio Digital’s projects include three data centers in Virginia in addition to data centers in California, Mississippi, Texas, Ireland and Spain.

The closest Avaio Digital facility to Arkansas is in Brandon, Mississippi, on a 329-acre campus about 13 miles east of state capital Jackson. The $6 billion project, which is also being constructed by Yates, will have 116 megawatts of power capacity and is scheduled to be completed and energized in the first half of 2027.