Where AI data centers are being built, and what it means for the land under them.

The six things a site selector checks before they ever call you, ranked by how much they matter.

The vocabulary of data center land deals, translated for people who work in acres, not megawatts.

Alabama Power territory has a dozen-plus proposals led by Bessemer's Project Marvel, and 2026 laws capped abatements at 20 years, ended sales tax abatement for 100 MW-plus centers, and put large-load contracts under PSC review.

Phoenix is a top-five US data center market, but a 2026 freeze on new tax certifications, a 4-1 county denial in Pinal, and water politics have made it a harder place to site.

Google's West Memphis campus and a 2025 law letting utilities bill for plants under construction made Arkansas a live market, and a fast-growing backlash in Little Rock and Conway is testing it.

The Southeast's busiest hyperscale market, with a tiered sales tax exemption that survived repeal votes in 2024 and 2026 and a PSC that now vets every 100 MW contract.

A 50-year sales tax exemption and cheap farmland brought Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft to Indiana; by mid-2026 nearly a third of counties had paused or restricted new projects.

A 2025 law gave Kansas a 20-year sales tax exemption for $250 million data centers, and Evergy's 6 GW pipeline is testing Kansas City suburbs from Tonganoxie to the Speedway.

Home to Meta's Hyperion and Hut 8's River Bend, Louisiana pairs the lowest industrial power price in the South with a 20-year state and local sales tax rebate and a regulator that fast-tracks gas plants for large loads.

A 2024 exemption law opened Michigan to hyperscale campuses; the first, a 1,400 MW Stargate site in Saline Township, set off township fights, MPSC tariff rules, and a 2026 election-year backlash.

A 2025 law traded a longer equipment exemption for the country's strictest large-load rules, and a wave of lawsuits and county denials has since slowed a boom that never quite arrived.

Amazon's $10 billion Madison County campus reset the state's ambitions; a 10-year data center exemption, a legislature willing to write project-specific law, and Entergy load growth now collide with rising bills.

Missouri pairs a 15-year sales tax exemption with new large-load tariffs at Evergy and Ameren, and hyperscalers have responded with Google's Project Mica and gigawatt campuses near New Florence.

New Jersey has no data center sales tax exemption, the highest industrial power prices in PJM, a new Data Center Fair Share law, and a growing list of towns that have banned data centers outright.

Home to the $165 billion Project Jupiter bond deal at Santa Teresa, New Mexico has the cheapest industrial power in the West but no statewide data center exemption and a fast-growing wave of county moratoria.

New York became the first state to freeze large data center permits in July 2026, even as nearly 12 GW of requests sit in the NYISO queue and upstate hydro sites like Lake Mariner keep building.

Duke Energy territory with a $75 million exemption threshold, a 2026 budget that ended the electricity exemption, and a large-load tariff now being written at the Utilities Commission.

Applied Digital's Ellendale and Harwood campuses turned North Dakota into a gigawatt AI market almost overnight, with an uncapped equipment exemption and little state oversight of siting.

Central Ohio became a top-five data center market on a 100 percent sales tax exemption that cost $1.6 billion in 2025; the governor paused new awards in June 2026 while the legislature studies the industry.

Google's $9 billion Pryor and Stillwater expansion, cheap SPP power, and a wave of Tulsa-area campuses have made Oklahoma a top-tier hyperscale market with fast-rising local pushback.

PJM's largest generation state is converting retired coal plants into gigawatt campuses while the PUC, the governor, and townships tighten rules on who pays for the grid.

A low-threshold exemption whose cost jumped to $828 million in one year, a state-owned utility with a 15-year large-load rate, and a 2026 reform push that ended in study provisos.

TVA territory with the cheapest industrial power in the Southeast, a new data center rate class effective October 2026, a self-generation law, and a fast-spreading wave of county moratoria.

The busiest state for gigawatt-scale announcements, with cheap land, a state sales tax exemption up to 20 years, and an ERCOT queue so large the state paused new interconnections in August 2026.

The world's largest data center market is now pushing south of Loudoun, under a new $0.011 per kWh electricity tax, a 14-year large-load tariff, and county-level zoning fights.

Microsoft, Vantage/OpenAI, and Meta are building along Lake Michigan and in Dodge County under a 2023 exemption; a 2026 PSC tariff overhaul and the nation's first anti-data-center referendum changed the terms.

Cheyenne has become a gigawatt-scale hub for Microsoft, Meta, and Google, backed by a low-threshold equipment exemption and a utility tariff that walls large loads off from other ratepayers.