AVAIO Plans 1GW AI-Ready Campus in Little Rock, Arkansas

AVAIO Digital Partners has announced plans for a $6 billion, 1,000 MW AI-ready data centre and power campus in Little Rock, Arkansas. The project is notable not just for its scale - 1 GW would make it one of the largest single-campus developments in the US - but for its explicit inclusion of dedicated power generation infrastructure alongside the data centre facilities. This "co-located power" model, where the developer builds its own generation rather than relying on the local utility grid, is becoming the defining strategy of the current development cycle.

Arkansas offers a combination of factors that explain why AVAIO chose the state over more established markets. Power costs are competitive at approximately $0.06/kWh from a mix of natural gas, nuclear (the ANO plant near Russellville), and growing renewables. Land costs are among the lowest in the US at $15,000-30,000 per acre for industrial parcels. The regulatory environment is business-friendly with an established track record of supporting large industrial developments. And critically, the local utility (Entergy Arkansas) has available grid capacity and a willingness to work with large-load customers that many utilities in primary data centre markets no longer offer.

The co-located power component is strategically significant. Rather than waiting 3-5 years for a grid interconnection through PJM or other congested queue processes, AVAIO plans to build on-site natural gas and potentially renewable generation that can power the data centre campus directly. This approach trades higher capital costs for faster time-to-power and independence from utility constraints. Several other developers have adopted similar strategies, including behind-the-meter nuclear PPAs (Constellation, Talen Energy) and on-site solar/battery combinations.

The project represents the expansion of data centre development into what was previously uncharted territory. Two years ago, Arkansas would not have appeared on any site selector's shortlist for hyperscale data centre development. Today, it joins Mississippi (AWS $25 billion), Louisiana (Meta $27 billion), Indiana (Meta $10 billion), Wisconsin (Microsoft $13 billion), and Wyoming (Microsoft 3,200 acres) as evidence that the AI infrastructure boom is reshaping the economic geography of the United States in ways that echo the factory-building era of the early 20th century.

For local communities, these projects bring both opportunity and disruption. A 1,000 MW campus requires thousands of construction workers during build-out, generating temporary booms in housing, restaurants, and services. The permanent operational workforce is much smaller - typically 200-500 people for a facility this size - but the property tax revenue can be transformative. Little Rock, with a metropolitan population of approximately 750,000, is better positioned than some rural locations to absorb the economic impact without the severe infrastructure strain that has accompanied projects in smaller communities.