Why developers come here
Arkansas was a late entrant and has moved quickly to catch up. Google’s $4 billion West Memphis campus in Crittenden County, across the river from Memphis and its fiber, is under construction with a maximum demand of 600 MW. A second hyperscale project is under construction at Clarksville, and sites are planned in Conway, Grant County, Pulaski County near Wrightsville, and the Port of Little Rock. Industrial electricity averaged 6.61 cents per kWh in 2024 (EIA) and 6.63 cents year-to-date through June 2026, well under the national 8.89.
Two 2025 laws did the recruiting. Act 548 cut the investment threshold for the data center sales tax exemption from $500 million to $100 million and added electricity to the exempt list. Act 373, the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act, lets utilities begin recovering the cost of new power plants from customers while the plants are still under construction, which Entergy Arkansas is using to build generation for the Google load.
Incentives
- Sales and use tax exemption, Arkansas Code 26-52-456. Created by Act 819 of 2023 (effective October 2023) and expanded by Act 548 of 2025 (effective October 1, 2025). A “qualified data center” must invest at least $100 million within five years, pay at least $1 million a year in aggregate compensation to Arkansas employees (contractor payments now count), and receive a positive cost-benefit analysis and approval from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC). A new “qualified large data center” tier requires $2 billion of investment and $3 million of annual compensation. Exempt purchases include data center equipment, software, construction and renovation services, electricity, and, since 2025, power storage and related equipment. Cryptocurrency mining does not qualify. Compliance enforcement sits with the Department of Finance and Administration.
- Property tax. The data center statute covers sales and use tax only; there is no statewide data center property tax exemption. Local property tax relief, where it exists, is negotiated project by project with the county or city.
- Act 373 of 2025. Not a tax incentive but central to the market: it authorizes recovery of construction work in progress for new generation through a rider, subject to Public Service Commission approval.
- Local rules, 2026. Little Rock adopted a data center ordinance on June 3, 2026, covering noise, landscaping, and utility requirements; the mayor said the 2023 Data Centers Act prevents the city from banning them outright. No state moratorium has been proposed.
Power
Entergy Arkansas, in MISO South, serves the Delta, Little Rock, Conway, and Pine Bluff, and holds every announced hyperscale contract. SWEPCO and OG&E serve the west and northwest in SPP; electric cooperatives cover much of the rural state.
Large loads contract directly with the utility, and the Arkansas Public Service Commission approves the special rate contract. The commission approved Entergy’s contract for Google’s West Memphis facility in December 2025. Entergy told a legislative committee on September 15, 2026 that Google will make $443 million in accelerated payments plus $83 million a year in minimum demand payments over 20 years, more than $2.1 billion in total, and that the contract is structured so the customer pays its cost of service plus an amount that reduces bills for others.
Generation is being built under Act 373. Beginning June 2026 Entergy residential customers pay a rider of about $5.77 a month for three plants under construction, including Cypress Solar near Pine Bluff, a 600 MW solar field with a 350 MW battery, about $1.6 billion, that Entergy says will cover the Google load. Whether Google is paying the full cost of that plant is disputed: Google said it would, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette obtained contract documents that questioned it, and in September 2026 a judge refused to block the paper’s reporting. The Democrat-Gazette is also litigating a Public Service Commission records denial. Water has come up in Little Rock (Lake Winona) and in Conway but has not been a state-level issue.
Where the projects are
The Delta and I-40 corridor: Google at West Memphis in Crittenden County, an unnamed hyperscale project under construction at Clarksville in Johnson County, and the Conway proposal in Faulkner County by Forgelight Ventures for an unnamed Fortune 100 company. Central Arkansas: Google’s planned 300,000-square-foot facility at the Port of Little Rock, a Wrightsville site in southern Pulaski County, and a Grant County site. Pine Bluff hosts the Cypress Solar generation rather than a data center.
Local politics
West Memphis and Crittenden County have been welcoming; the Google project brought the region its largest investment and the Legislature’s Joint Energy Committee heard Google describe itself as “engaged with our stakeholders.” State leadership passed Acts 548 and 373 with little resistance.
Central Arkansas is where the fight is. In Conway, more than 100 residents protested at a September 2025 town hall and returned in May 2026 to complain about a shell company, no named end user, and a site in a neighborhood already flagged for air toxics; the mayor called the project speculative. In Little Rock, a five-hour meeting on June 3, 2026 produced a unanimous vote for regulations that many speakers called too weak, with calls for a moratorium instead. Legislators from both parties questioned Entergy in September 2026 about ratepayers funding Cypress Solar. The Arkansas Advocate summed up the theme as trust and transparency: NDAs, unnamed tenants, and a rider on every bill.
What a landowner should know
Arkansas campuses have ranged from single large buildings on a few hundred acres (Little Rock port, Conway) to the multi-building Google site at West Memphis. Developers want Entergy 500 kV or 161 kV access, rail, and river or municipal water. Options are typically taken by a Delaware LLC under a code name; the Conway and Little Rock examples show that the name becomes the political issue.
Cities have zoning, and Little Rock now has data center-specific standards; unincorporated county land generally does not, so the public decision points are the AEDC cost-benefit approval, any local property tax vote, and the Public Service Commission’s contract review. The state contact is the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, 1 Commerce Way, Little Rock (1-800-ARKANSAS); rate and contract dockets are at the Arkansas Public Service Commission.