Central Arkansas to get $6 billion data center

A Connecticut-based company announced plans to build a $6 billion data center just outside Little Rock’s city limits Monday, the latest in a string of such projects locating in Arkansas. 

AVAIO Digital Partners said in a news release that the data center complex, to be built off Interstate 530 in Pulaski County, will host the “compute, networking, data storage technologies and power infrastructure that underpin cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications.” 

AVAIO is a data center operator and developer that works with “AI, HPC and hyperscaler data center clients,” according to the release.

The $6 billion is an initial investment that includes infrastructure costs. The AVAIO Digital Leo project will initially use 150 megawatts of power a year — but that power consumption could reach upwards of 1 gigawatt in the future, equivalent to roughly 750,000 homes. Construction is expected to start this year, with the facility set to come online in 2027.

Google announced its own $4 billion data center project investment in West Memphis in October which is already under construction. Like Google, the AVAIO project plans to obtain power from Entergy. Three other projects are also in the works in Little Rock, Conway and Clarksville.

The data centers necessary to power the world’s increasing use of AI products, such as ChatGPT, have faced increasing scrutiny due to their massive energy requirements at a time when power bills are rising nationwide. Energy bills nationally have increased nearly 30% between 2021 and the end of 2025.The data center announcements come on the heels of Act 373 of 2025, which proponents say will cut down on permitting timelines for new power generation. Critics of the law have said it reduces oversight and allows utility companies to recoup costs from customers on utility projects that haven’t been built yet.