Project’s first phase will see $6 billion investment; $21 billion through full development will be largest capital business outlay in state history

By Arkansas Black Vitality Staff

LITTLE ROCK – Jan. 11, 2026 – The first of several multi-billion-dollar data centers in Arkansas will hit the ground running in Little Rock in the coming weeks, bringing more than 500 jobs to the Natural State and over $21 billion in development investment.

On Monday (Dec. 12, 2026), Stamford, Conn.-based AVAIO Digital Partners announced a major new data center hub in Pulaski County that will help accelerate the state’s rapidly growing tech sector.

Named after the constellation Leo — the Lion — symbolizing strength, power, and leadership, the 760-acre campus will house computing, networking, data storage, and power infrastructure that support cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications, company officials said.

 The campus will be built out in multiple phases with an initial $6 billion combined investment from AVAIO and its customers in infrastructure, power and tenant deployments over the course of the project.

“It is our intention that this extraordinary … 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,” said Mark McComiskey, CEO of AVAIO Digital.

According to state Commerce Department officials, the initial $6 billion investment by AVAIO and its partners during the first phase of the project will be the largest in state history. Total investment for the project

The new data center campus is expected to generate over 500 full-time, permanent jobs in operations within the next five years as it is developed. Additionally, the construction phase will create thousands of new jobs in the region, according to company officials.

Gov. Sarah Sanders and Arkansas Secretary of Commerce Hugh McDonald, former CEO of Entergy Arkansas, said the project will provide significant fiscal benefits to the state and create substantial new workforce development opportunities by tapping into the large professional labor pool of Greater Little Rock, from construction through the facility’s operations. 

“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,” said Sanders, citing the passage of several new bills, collectively called Arkansas IMPACT during the 2025 legislative session, as a key driver of the new super project.

This legislative package includes the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act of 2025 (Act 373), which allows utility companies to make strategic infrastructure investments, and Act 548, a sales and use tax exemption for data centers. IMPACT reduced the permitting time for new energy projects from 12 to 18 months to six months.

“Just last year, Arkansas led the way and passed legislation that reduced the regulatory timeline for new energy projects by more than half and offered new incentives to data center investments. This announcement confirms that cutting red tape and cultivating a pro-business, pro-growth environment is not only appealing to companies; it is what makes Arkansas one of the best states to live and work.”

According to AVAIO Digital, a little-known East Coast venture group with a portfolio of nearly $100 billion in AI data center investments worldwide, the new Little Rock project is designed as a next-generation digital campus. The development will feature world-class architecture, buffered from neighboring parcels by natural forests and landscaped terrain.

The Connecticut-based tech company said it will incorporate intelligent, high-efficiency, sustainable elements, including water-efficient cooling technologies, rainwater capture systems, rooftop solar generation, and advanced economization of cooling systems to reduce overall power demand.

Together, McComiskey said, these elements position the Little Rock campus as one of the most forward-leaning and community-conscious digital infrastructure developments in the nation. The Leo Data Hub is part of AVAIO Digital’s expanding portfolio of hyperscale projects across the United States and Western Europe.

Nationally, AVAIO Digital has secured over 1.2 GW of power from utilities at campuses in Northern California, Virginia, Arkansas, and Mississippi, and is working to build out this full capacity, with more than 450 megawatts (MWs) being energized in 2027. The privately-held East Coast tech investor has contracted with Entergy Arkansas for 150 MW of power, but the company expects power demand of up to 1 GW as the facility expands.

“This announcement further demonstrates how the policies of our state are working. With the ability to make investments in new and economic resources, such as the Jefferson Power Station, Entergy Arkansas can provide the power needed to support the Next Generation of Arkansas and growth in all our communities,” said Laura Landreaux, president and CEO of Entergy Arkansas.

“This first phase of AVAIO Digital’s project represents yet another success story of attracting new customers and employers, which in turn will drive down costs for everyone,” she said.

AI-powered super projects pushing Arkansas capital investments to new heights

As noted, the AVAIO Digital project will be the largest-ever capital investment for a super project in Arkansas, nearly doubling the $11 billion price tag for the Big River I and II project that has brought over 16,000 jobs to Mississippi County and northeast Arkansas.

However, Walmart’s new headquarters in Bentonville spans about 350 acres and may exceed the combined per-square-foot costs of both AVAIO Digital and Big River. The precise cost of the Northwest Arkansas mega-project hasn’t been disclosed, but it is described as a multibillion-dollar investment designed to set a new standard for corporate headquarters, emphasizing employee well-being and environmental responsibility.

According to the American Edge Project, AI is a powerful magnet for private capital in all 50 states. In the first eight months of 2025 alone, AI attracted $144.9 billion across nearly 3,400 deals – representing more than one-third of all U.S. VC activity and nearly two-thirds of total deal value.

In April, the Conway City Council approved a memorandum of understanding with Forgelight Ventures on behalf of an unnamed Fortune 100 company to build a new $1 billion, 300,000-square-foot data center in southwest Conway. 

Google announced a new $4 billion investment in Arkansas through 2027, including Google’s first data center in the state — located in West Memphis — along with cloud and AI infrastructure, and local programs to boost energy resilience and affordability for residents. This new data center will generate hundreds of operational jobs and thousands of construction jobs in the region, company officials said.

Also in April, the Little Rock City Board of Directors approved a resolution allowing Mayor Frank Scott to sign a memorandum of understanding with Willowbend Capital LLC for a $1 billion data center to be built and operated at the Little Rock Port. That deal, which city officials predicted would be “a significant driver of economic development in the region,” was expected to create 50 jobs, serve as a tech hub, and attract additional investment to central Arkansas.

So far, no updates have been announced regarding that deal. Besides the Arkansas projects, Elon Musk’s X, along with Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta, is also intensifying its ongoing and planned AI data center initiatives.

In December 2024, the Louisiana Economic Development (LED) announced that the tech company Meta was undertaking a monumental $10 billion AI data center project in Richland Parish, La., calling it “a transformational investment that cements the state’s status as a major innovation hub and leader in the global digital revolution.”

The 4 million-square-foot data center, about an hour’s drive from Junction City, Ark., in Union County, will be Meta’s largest AI center worldwide when finished by 2030. It will support at least 500 new direct jobs and over 1,000 indirect jobs. Construction is already in progress on the 2,250-acre site.

Musk is also rapidly expanding xAI’s $6 billion Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, Tenn., located just across the Mississippi River from the Arkansas state line.

The ongoing Memphis expansion by xAI will include at least one million graphics processing units, making it one of the largest supercomputers in the world. The site also features the world’s largest Tesla Megapack deployment for supercomputing and data center operations, along with plans for an $80 million water recycling plant that will process 13 million gallons of water daily to cool the Colossus.

To power the facility, the Tennessee Valley Authority approved a pact in November 2024 to supply the xAI supercomputer with 150 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power 100,000 homes. At full capacity, Colossus will need 300 MW of electricity to power X’s Grok chatbot feature on the social media platform.

Also, AVAIO and the State of Mississippi announced in August that it would build a $6 billion data center campus at the East Metropolitan Center Business and Industrial Park in Brandon, Miss. Construction on that project has already begun and is expected to be complete during the first half of 2027. 

Entergy Mississippi, a sister company of Entergy Arkansas, will also supply power for that project. During the 2025 legislative session, Entergy was the primary supporter of the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act of 2025, which altered the way utilities can finance large grid infrastructure projects with little or no regulatory approval.

In its recent third-quarter earnings report in October, Entergy Corp., the parent company of Entergy Arkansas, highlighted a 7.5% increase in industrial retail sales as the strongest aspect of its operational performance, largely fueled by growth in AI data centers.

“Our pipeline of potential data center customers continues to expand, and we’re ready for the opportunity, including increasing our agreement for power island equipment by an additional 4.5 gigawatts and securing critical long lead time equipment,” Entergy CEO Drew Marsh said during the company’ third quarter conference call.