{"slug": "every-major-us-data-center-approval-state-by-state-2019-2026", "title": "Every Major US Data Center Approval, State by State (2019-2026)", "summary": "Georgia regulators voted 5-0 in December 2025 to let Georgia Power add 9,885 MW of capacity, mostly for data centers, at a cost of at least $16 billion, according to a state-by-state record of US data center approvals from 2019 to November 2026 compiled by LLM Pulse. Louisiana's commission approved three gas plants for Meta by a 4-1 vote in August 2025 and is due to vote on December 10, 2026 on seven more priced at about $21 billion, while Doña Ana County, New Mexico approved up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds for Project Jupiter, also 4-1. The record shows the decisive approvals shifting from county rezonings and city tax abatements before 2025 to utility commission orders and state laws setting who pays for power, and notes Prince William County's 4-3 approval of the PW Digital Gateway in December 2023 was voided in court and abandoned in July 2026.", "body_md": "[Blog](https://llmpulse.ai/blog/)\n\n# Every Major US Data Center Approval, State by State (2019-2026)\n\nBy Daniel Peris\n\nThe US data center build-out was approved one decision at a time: county rezonings and city tax abatements at first, then, from 2025, utility commission orders and state laws that decide who pays for the power. This is the record of those decisions from 2019 to November 2026, state by state, with dates and vote counts where the record has them. For the projects themselves, see our [map of AI data centers under construction in the US](https://llmpulse.ai/blog/ai-data-centers-under-construction/).\n\nThe headline numbers, as of November 2026: Georgia regulators voted 5-0 in December 2025 to let Georgia Power add 9,885 MW of capacity, mostly for data centers, at a cost of at least $16 billion. Louisiana's commission approved three gas plants for Meta by 4-1 in August 2025 and is due to vote on December 10, 2026 on seven more, priced at about $21 billion. Doña Ana County, New Mexico approved up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds for Project Jupiter, also 4-1. The biggest land-use approval in the record, Prince William County's 4-3 vote for the PW Digital Gateway in December 2023, was voided in court and abandoned in July 2026. Data Center Map listed more than 3,000 operating US data centers and more than 1,500 in development in February 2026, 685 of them in Virginia, according to [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/04/13/most-new-data-centers-in-the-us-are-coming-to-rural-areas/).\n\n## Why one project needs so many approvals\n\nA large AI campus needs land-use approval from a county or city, usually a local tax deal, often a state incentive, a power contract or new generation that a utility commission signs off on, air permits if it runs its own turbines, and sometimes a federal decision on transmission or nuclear power. Until 2024 the visible fights were mostly local. Since 2025 the decisions with the most money attached have come from utility commissions and legislatures, which now set minimum bills, contract lengths and grid rules for data centers.\n\n## The master table: major US data center approvals, 2019-2026\n\n\"Confirmed\" means we read the decision record, the agency's release or direct reporting of the vote. \"Reported\" means press reporting we could not check against the record. \"Company-announced\" means the developer's own release.\n\n| Date | State | Jurisdiction or body | Project (developer or tenant) | What was approved | Vote or decision | Note | \n|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|\n| Apr 5, 2022 | Virginia | Culpeper County Board of Supervisors | Amazon (AWS), Stevensburg | Rezoning for a campus near a Civil War battlefield | Approved by one vote | Confirmed: American Battlefield Trust | \n| Mar 30, 2023 | Wisconsin | Mount Pleasant Village Board | Microsoft, former Foxconn district | Sale of about 315 acres for $50.1M; $1B development agreement | Approved | Confirmed: Spectrum News | \n| Dec 13, 2023 | Virginia | Prince William County Board of Supervisors | PW Digital Gateway (QTS, Compass) | Rezonings for about 2,100 acres and 23M sq ft | 4-3, one abstention | Confirmed: WTOP. Voided 2025, abandoned July 2026 | \n| Jan 25, 2024 | Mississippi | State Legislature, special session | AWS, two Madison County campuses ($10B) | About $44M in incentives, 10-year income tax exemption | Near-unanimous | Confirmed: MPB | \n| Aug 2024 | Indiana | St. Joseph County Council | AWS, New Carlisle ($11B announced) | Property tax abatement, initially valued at $4B over 35 years | Approved, two no votes | Reported: WVPE | \n| Oct 1, 2024 | Ohio | New Albany City Council | Microsoft, 200 acres ($420M) | 15-year, 100% property tax abatement | Approved | Confirmed: WOSU | \n| Nov 1, 2024 | Federal (PA) | FERC | Talen Susquehanna nuclear plant, Amazon | Amended deal for more co-located load | Rejected, 2-1 | Confirmed: Foley summary of the order | \n| Nov 7, 2024 | Tennessee | TVA board | xAI Colossus, Memphis | 150 MW via MLGW, with demand response | Approved | Confirmed: WKMS. Another 150 MW in Feb 2026 | \n| Jan 23, 2025 | Georgia | Public Service Commission | Georgia Power large-load rule | Special terms for new loads over 100 MW | Unanimous | Confirmed: PSC release | \n| Feb 19, 2025 | Indiana | Utility Regulatory Commission | I&M settlement (Amazon, Google, Microsoft were parties) | Tariff for loads of 70 MW or more | Approved with one change | Confirmed: Utility Dive | \n| 2025 | Texas | Abilene City Council, Taylor County | Lancium and Crusoe campus leased to Oracle (Stargate) | Expanded abatements; city share 85% | Approved | Confirmed: city development corporation; Texas Standard | \n| May 22, 2025 | Wisconsin | Public Service Commission | We Energies, demand driven by Microsoft | 1,100 MW Oak Creek and 128 MW Paris gas units (about $1.5B) | Unanimous, with conditions | Confirmed: BizTimes, WUWM | \n| Jun 9, 2025 | Indiana | Hammond Common Council | Decennial Group and CoreWeave ($7B) | Development agreement with abatements | 8-0 | Reported: GovTech | \n| Jun 20, 2025 | Texas | Governor (SB 6) | Statewide | Rules for loads of 75 MW or more | Signed, effective immediately | Confirmed: Texas Legislature | \n| Jul 2, 2025 | Tennessee | Shelby County Health Department | xAI Colossus, Memphis | Air permit for 15 gas turbines | Issued | Confirmed: E&E News | \n| Jul 9, 2025 | Ohio | PUCO | AEP Ohio data center tariff | Pay for 85% of subscribed capacity for up to 12 years | Approved | Confirmed: AEP release | \n| Jul 2025 | Texas | Shackelford County Commissioners Court | Vantage Data Centers (Stargate site) | Reinvestment zone; $10M a year in lieu of taxes for 10 years | Unanimous | Reported: Albany News | \n| Jul 23, 2025 | Federal | White House (EO 14318) | AI data centers over 100 MW or $500M | Faster federal permitting | Signed | Confirmed: White House | \n| Jul 24, 2025 | Federal | Department of Energy | Idaho, Oak Ridge, Paducah, Savannah River | Federal sites for AI data centers and power | Selected | Confirmed: DOE | \n| Aug 19, 2025 | Wisconsin | Port Washington Common Council | Vantage \"Lighthouse\" (Stargate) | Development agreement; $458M TIF district later | Unanimous | Confirmed: BizTimes, WUWM | \n| Aug 20, 2025 | Louisiana | Public Service Commission | Entergy for Meta Hyperion, Richland Parish | Three gas plants, about 2.2 GW | 4-1 | Confirmed: WAFB | \n| Sep 19, 2025 | New Mexico | Doña Ana County Commission | Project Jupiter (BorderPlex, Stack; Oracle, OpenAI) | Up to $165B in industrial revenue bonds | 4-1 | Confirmed vote: KRWG. Amount reported | \n| Oct 15, 2025 | Michigan | Washtenaw County court (consent judgment) | Related Digital, Saline Township (Oracle, OpenAI) | Project allowed after a 4-1 township denial | Settlement | Confirmed: Planet Detroit. Abatement approved Jul 2026 | \n| Nov 18, 2025 | Pennsylvania | Department of Environmental Protection | Homer City Redevelopment, 3,200 acres | Air approval for up to 4.4 GW of gas generation | Issued in 157 days | Confirmed: Technical.ly. Appeal reported | \n| Nov 25, 2025 | Virginia | State Corporation Commission | Dominion Energy | GS-5 class for 25 MW+ customers; 944 MW gas plant | Approved | Confirmed: Cardinal News, WTVR | \n| Dec 18, 2025 | Michigan | Public Service Commission | DTE contracts for the 1.4 GW Saline campus | Special contracts, no contested hearing | Unanimous | Confirmed: ClickOnDetroit | \n| Dec 18, 2025 | Federal | FERC | PJM co-located loads | New transmission services for co-location | Order | Confirmed: Beveridge & Diamond | \n| Dec 19, 2025 | Georgia | Public Service Commission | Georgia Power | 9,885 MW of new resources | 5-0 | Confirmed: AJC | \n| Feb 25, 2026 | Texas | TCEQ | Fermi America, Amarillo | 6 GW gas-fired air permit | Issued | Company-announced | \n| Mar 10, 2026 | Mississippi | MDEQ Permit Board | xAI plant in Southaven for Colossus 2 | 41 gas turbines | Unanimous. Appealed April 2026 | Confirmed: MPB | \n| Mar 18, 2026 | Indiana | Indianapolis Metropolitan Development Commission | Sabey, Decatur Township ($4B) | Variances for a 130-acre campus | Approved | Confirmed: IPM | \n| Apr 7, 2026 | Georgia | Coweta County Board of Commissioners | Project Sail (Prologis, Atlas Development) | Rezoning of about 829 acres, about 900 MW | 3-2 | Confirmed: AJC, The Citizen | \n| Apr 15, 2026 | Louisiana | Public Service Commission | Entergy, seven more gas plants for Meta | Fast-track review; final vote in December | 4-1 | Confirmed: KPLC | \n| Apr 24, 2026 | Wisconsin | Public Service Commission | We Energies very large customer tariff | 100 MW threshold, 15-year terms | Approved with changes | Confirmed: PSC release | \n| Jun 30, 2026 | Virginia | Governor (budget) | Statewide | Kept sales tax exemption; added $0.011 per kWh tax | Signed | Confirmed: Williams Mullen | \n| Jul 22-29, 2026 | South Carolina, Kentucky | Department of Energy | Savannah River (Amentum, 1 GW); Paducah (Brookfield, NextEra, 1.8 GW) | Developer selections | Selected | Confirmed: DOE via HPCwire; W.Media | \n| Nov 2, 2026 | Georgia | City of Kingston | Thor Equities, 560 acres | Special use permit | Approved | Reported: Fox 5 Atlanta | \n\n## Large-load rules: who pays for the power\n\nSeven states now have a state law or regulator-approved terms that make large data centers commit to long contracts or minimum bills before the utility builds for them.\n\n| State | Decision | Utility | Who it covers | Main terms | \n|---|---|---|---|---|\n| Georgia | PSC rule, Jan 23, 2025 | Georgia Power | New customers over 100 MW | Contracts up to 15 years, minimum bills, PSC review of each contract | \n| Indiana | IURC order, Feb 19, 2025 | Indiana Michigan Power | 70 MW at a site or 150 MW per company | Long-term commitments sized to load; cuts over 20% need IURC approval | \n| Texas | SB 6, Jun 20, 2025 | ERCOT utilities | 75 MW or more | Interconnection and cost rules; PUCT rules still in progress | \n| Ohio | PUCO order, Jul 9, 2025 | AEP Ohio | Large new data centers | Pay for at least 85% of subscribed capacity for up to 12 years, exit fee | \n| Virginia | SCC order, Nov 25, 2025 (from Jan 1, 2027) | Dominion Energy | 25 MW or more | 14-year contracts; minimums of 85% for transmission and distribution, 60% for generation | \n| Michigan | MPSC order, Dec 18, 2025 | DTE Electric (Saline contracts) | One 1.4 GW campus | 19-year minimum term, 80% minimum billing, exit payment of up to 10 years | \n| Wisconsin | PSC decision, Apr 24, 2026 | We Energies | 100 MW or more | 15-year minimum term; customer pays 100% of resource costs | \n\n## Adding up the approvals\n\nNo national registry of data center approvals exists, so every total below is a floor built from the decisions in the table.\n\n- State utility regulators certified roughly 13.3 GW of generation mainly for data center load: 9,885 MW in Georgia, about 2.2 GW in Louisiana and 1,228 MW in Wisconsin. Louisiana's pending request would add about 5.2 GW, by Entergy's reported figure.\n- Air permits cleared about 11.6 GW of on-site gas generation: up to 4.4 GW at Homer City, 6 GW for Fermi America and 41 turbines in Southaven that xAI puts at 1.2 GW.\n- That is about 25 GW cleared between May 2025 and March 2026 in these approvals alone.\n- Ohio said its data center sales tax break cost $554 million in 2024 and nearly $1.6 billion in 2025.\n- Of the 37 rows in the master table, 15 are local decisions (land use, tax deals, a court settlement and a county air permit), 13 come from state regulators, 3 from governors or legislatures and 6 from federal bodies, counting TVA.\n\n## What state has the most data centers?\n\nVirginia, by a wide margin. Pew's analysis of Data Center Map listings, current as of February 19, 2026, counts operating sites and planned ones (under construction, planned or land-banked):\n\n| Rank | State | Total | Operating | Planned | \n|---|---|---|---|---|\n| 1 | Virginia | 685 | 398 | 287 | \n| 2 | Texas | 466 | 296 | 170 | \n| 3 | California | 331 | 277 | 54 | \n| 4 | Illinois | 262 | 139 | 123 | \n| 5 | Georgia | 235 | 94 | 141 | \n| 6 | Ohio | 223 | 166 | 57 | \n| 7 | Arizona | 184 | 98 | 86 | \n| 8 | New York | 154 | 148 | 6 | \n| 9 | Oregon | 142 | 115 | 27 | \n| 10 | Washington | 135 | 124 | 11 | \n\nGeorgia is the only top-10 state with more planned sites than operating ones. Pew found that 67% of planned data centers are rural and 39% are in counties that have none today, so many recent votes come from county boards handling their first one. Counts vary by source: the Texas Tribune identified at least 335 operating and 248 planned data centers in Texas in August 2026.\n\n## Timeline of approvals, 2019-2026\n\n- **2019-2021:** Approvals were routine. Loudoun County, Virginia allowed data centers by right in many zones, and Abilene, Texas signed up Lancium in 2021, leading to the city's first tax abatements in over a decade.\n- **2022:** Culpeper approved Amazon's Stevensburg campus by one vote, and Prince William opened the Digital Gateway corridor in its comprehensive plan.\n- **2023:** Mount Pleasant sold Microsoft its first land on the old Foxconn site, and Prince William approved the Digital Gateway after a meeting of more than 27 hours.\n- **2024:** Incentives led. Mississippi passed AWS incentives in a special session, Georgia's governor vetoed a pause on its tax break, and FERC rejected the expanded Talen-Amazon deal.\n- **2025:** Regulators took over. Five states approved large-load terms, Texas passed SB 6, four states certified gas plants, and a federal executive order and DOE site picks came in July.\n- **2026 (to mid-November):** Approvals and pullbacks ran together. The Digital Gateway died, Coweta approved Project Sail, Ohio and Illinois stopped new tax-break offers, Virginia added a consumption tax, and Texas ordered a grid queue audit.\n\n## State by state\n\n### Virginia\n\nPrince William's December 13, 2023 vote [approved the PW Digital Gateway](https://wtop.com/prince-william-county/2023/12/prince-william-supervisors-approve-pw-digital-gateway-expected-to-be-the-worlds-largest-data-center-corridor) for QTS and Compass. Judge Kimberly Irving voided it in August 2025 over defective public notice, the Court of Appeals agreed on March 31, 2026, the county and Compass [stopped defending it](https://wtop.com/prince-william-county/2026/04/developers-drop-appeal-of-zoning-decision-on-digital-gateway-project/) in April, and QTS withdrew on July 2. Loudoun ended by-right data centers by 7-2 on March 18, 2025, so projects now need a special exception and hearings. The State Corporation Commission [created the GS-5 class](https://cardinalnews.org/2025/11/26/regulators-approve-dominion-energy-rate-increase/) in November 2025, and the 2026-2028 budget kept the sales tax exemption but added a [$0.011 per kWh tax](https://www.williamsmullen.com/insights/news/legal-news/virginia-budget-creates-new-electricity-consumption-tax-data-centers), with collections above $600 million refunded from fiscal 2028.\n\n### Texas\n\nAbilene and Taylor County expanded the Lancium abatements as Crusoe built for Oracle and OpenAI, a project the city's development corporation now puts at eight buildings and more than $47 billion. Shackelford County [created a reinvestment zone](https://www.thealbanynews.net/node/203902) for Vantage in July 2025, and OpenAI named it a Stargate site that September (our [Stargate data center map](https://llmpulse.ai/blog/stargate-data-centers/) has every site). SB 6, [signed June 20, 2025](https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=SB6), set rules for loads of 75 MW or more. On August 3, 2026 Gov. Greg Abbott [ordered an audit](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/03/texas-data-center-project-audit-greg-abbott/) of every data center in ERCOT's queue, which held more than 474 GW of requests, before any more advance.\n\n### Georgia\n\nThe Public Service Commission's January 2025 rule [let Georgia Power bill loads over 100 MW](https://psc.ga.gov/site/assets/files/8617/media_advisory_data_centers_rule_1-23-2025.pdf) on contracts of up to 15 years. On December 19, 2025 an all-Republican commission [certified 9,885 MW](https://www.ajc.com/business/2025/12/georgia-power-gets-pscs-go-ahead-on-16b-data-center-power-plant-expansion/), about 60% of it gas, after Georgia Power testified to contracts for 7,900 MW of data center demand; with two newly elected Democrats seated, it refused to reconsider in February 2026 by 3-2. Coweta County's moratorium ended in December 2025, and in April 2026 the county [rezoned Project Sail](https://www.ajc.com/business/2026/04/coweta-votes-to-turn-this-800-acre-forest-into-17b-data-center-campus), which the AJC put at $17 billion.\n\n### Ohio\n\nNew Albany's business park, with 68 data center buildings complete or under construction by January 2026, grew on city abatements such as Microsoft's 15-year, 100% deal in October 2024. On July 9, 2025 PUCO [adopted AEP Ohio's tariff](https://www.aep.com/news/stories/view/10327/) and set a path to end AEP's moratorium on new data center agreements. Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed the legislature's repeal of the sales tax exemption in 2025, then [paused new offers](https://www.wsls.com/tech/2026/05/28/ohio-suspends-data-center-tax-break-as-tech-firms-face-pressure-to-pay-the-cost-to-power-ai/) on May 27, 2026 while lawmakers study it.\n\n### Louisiana\n\nThe Public Service Commission [approved Entergy's three gas plants](https://www.wafb.com/2025/08/20/entergy-gains-regulatory-approval-massive-meta-power-project/) for Meta's Hyperion campus on August 20, 2025, with Commissioner Davante Lewis voting no; Meta covers the turbine costs. In April 2026 it fast-tracked seven more plants by the same 4-1 margin, with the final vote set for December 10, 2026. For Meta's wider build, see our [big tech AI data center map](https://llmpulse.ai/blog/big-tech-ai-data-centers/).\n\n### Indiana\n\nSt. Joseph County approved AWS's New Carlisle abatement in August 2024; in 2026 four council Republicans asked Amazon to pay into a homeowner tax-relief fund after nearly $38 million was abated in six months. Hammond voted 8-0 for a $7 billion Decennial and CoreWeave deal, and Indianapolis approved Sabey's $4 billion campus in March 2026.\n\n### Wisconsin\n\nMount Pleasant approved a nine-building Microsoft site plan in January 2026, and its plan commission backed a revised seven-building plan on October 14. Port Washington [approved Vantage's agreement](https://biztimes.com/port-washington-approves-8-billion-vantage-data-centers-project/) unanimously in August 2025, and in April 2026 the PSC [rewrote We Energies' data center tariff](https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/WIPSC/2026/04/24/file_attachments/3629258/PSC%20Overhauls%20We%20Energies%20Data%20Center%20Tariff,%20Makes%20Improvements%20to%20Protect%20Existing%20Customers.pdf), cutting its threshold from 500 MW to 100 MW.\n\n### Pennsylvania\n\nAfter FERC's 2-1 rejection of the expanded co-location deal at Susquehanna in November 2024, Talen and Amazon signed a 1,920 MW grid-connected contract in June 2025. The Department of Environmental Protection [approved Homer City's air plan](https://technical.ly/civics/homer-city-indiana-county-pennsylvania-data-center-permit-approval/) in November 2025 for up to 4.4 GW of gas generation on a former coal site.\n\n### Tennessee and Mississippi\n\nxAI's Memphis build went through TVA, which approved 150 MW in 2024 and 150 MW more in 2026, and the Shelby County Health Department, which [permitted 15 turbines](https://www.eenews.net/articles/musks-xai-gets-air-permit-for-memphis-supercomputer/) in July 2025. For Colossus 2, Mississippi's permit board [unanimously approved 41 turbines](https://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/mississippi-regulators-approve-permit-for-xai-gas-turbines-in-southaven-despite-resident-concerns/) in Southaven in March 2026.\n\n### Michigan\n\nSaline Township denied Related Digital's rezoning on September 10, 2025, was sued for exclusionary zoning and [settled](https://planetdetroit.org/2025/10/saline-data-center-settlement/) with about $14 million in local payments. In December the Michigan Public Service Commission [approved DTE's contracts](https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2025/12/18/michigan-regulators-approve-dte-contract-for-massive-saline-township-data-center) for the 1.4 GW campus without a contested hearing, an order Attorney General Dana Nessel has challenged since.\n\n### New Mexico\n\nDoña Ana County commissioners [voted 4-1](https://www.krwg.org/krwg-news/2025-09-19/dona-ana-county-commissioners-vote-to-move-forward-on-irb-for-project-jupiter) for Project Jupiter's industrial revenue bonds, up to $165 billion secured by the project's revenue, with no debt for the county. The 1,400-acre campus near Santa Teresa has Oracle as tenant and OpenAI as end customer. Its state air permit was still undecided in November 2026, with a public hearing [set for December 7](https://www.abqjournal.com/business/hearing-officer-rejects-bid-to-toss-revised-project-jupiter-air-permit/3150570), and residents have sued over the county's approval.\n\n### Illinois, Kentucky, South Carolina and federal actions\n\nIllinois [stopped taking applications](https://dceo.illinois.gov/expandrelocate/incentives/datacenters.html) for its data center tax incentive on July 1, 2026. [Executive Order 14318](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/accelerating-federal-permitting-of-data-center-infrastructure/) of July 2025 sped up federal permitting for projects over 100 MW or $500 million. DOE picked four federal sites, then chose Brookfield and NextEra for a [$100 billion-plus Paducah campus](https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/doe-selects-brookfield-and-nextera-for-100b-kentucky-ai-data-center-project/) that still needs Kentucky PSC approval of its power deal. FERC [ordered PJM](https://www.bdlaw.com/publications/ferc-orders-pjm-to-create-clear-rules-for-co-located-data-centers-and-large-loads/) in December 2025 to write rules for co-located data centers.\n\n## Patterns: what gets approved fast, and where the fight moved\n\nState permits and commission orders are the fastest approvals in the record. Pennsylvania issued Homer City's air approval in 157 days against a projected 285, Michigan approved DTE's contracts without a contested case, and Louisiana put Meta's seven-plant request on a timeline of under eight months. Local land-use approvals take longer and break more easily. The Digital Gateway died over a newspaper notice, and Saline's approval arrived only through a lawsuit.\n\nThe fight has followed the money to utility commissions and statehouses. Between January 2025 and April 2026, regulators in six states wrote minimum bills and long contracts into data center service. The same bodies now do the pausing: Texas ordered a queue audit, Ohio and Illinois stopped new tax-break offers, and Virginia kept its exemption while adding a tax. The full record of moratoriums, denials and withdrawals is in our [tracker of blocked data center projects](https://llmpulse.ai/blog/data-center-moratoriums/).\n\nCommunity benefits are now written into approvals. Saline's settlement pays $4 million for farmland preservation, $2 million to a community fund and $8 million for fire services. Hammond gets up to $4 million a year for scholarships, and Shackelford County takes $10 million a year in place of property taxes plus $150,000 a year for charities. Some tenants skip incentives: Mount Pleasant's 2023 expansion deal required no new financial incentives for Microsoft, which has also pledged not to seek a property tax break in Granger, Indiana.\n\n## What this means for your AI visibility\n\nResidents, county officials, reporters, investors and job seekers now research a data center by asking ChatGPT, Google AI Mode or Perplexity. Questions like \"is the data center in Coweta County approved?\" or \"who is building Project Jupiter?\" get answers that cite a local paper, an opposition group's site, a developer's release or a utility filing, and that answer reaches people before the public hearing does.\n\nFor developers, utilities, economic development agencies and the companies behind these campuses, that is a reputation question you can measure. LLM Pulse tracks brand mentions, [the sources and URLs AI answers cite](https://llmpulse.ai/features/citation-sources-analysis), share of voice and sentiment across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews, with daily, weekly or monthly tracking; Claude, Copilot, Grok, Meta AI and other models are paid add-ons. When a court ruling or a commission order changes a project's status, you can see whether AI answers caught up and which sources they relied on.\n\nSee how AI answers describe your project\n\nTrack the mentions, cited sources and sentiment that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI search attach to your brand.\n\n## Summary\n\nUntil 2024, US data center approvals were mostly local rezonings, abatements and by-right site plans. From 2025 the largest decisions moved to utility commissions, legislatures and environmental agencies, which cleared about 25 GW of new generation tied to data centers in the approvals listed here and set data-center power terms in seven states. Approvals keep coming, from Project Sail to Kingston's November 2026 permit, alongside a voided rezoning, paused tax breaks and a Texas queue audit. Louisiana's December 10, 2026 vote on seven more gas plants for Meta is the next big decision on the calendar.\n\n## Frequently asked questions\n\n### What state has the most data centers?\n\nVirginia. Pew Research Center's analysis of Data Center Map listings, current as of February 19, 2026, counted 685 operating and planned data centers in Virginia (398 operating), ahead of Texas with 466 and California with 331. Illinois, Georgia and Ohio follow.\n\n### Who approves a new data center in the US?\n\nUsually several bodies. A county or city handles zoning and often a tax abatement, a state utility commission approves the power contract or new generation, and a state or county environmental agency issues air permits for any on-site turbines. Some projects also need federal decisions on transmission, nuclear licensing or federal land.\n\n### What happened to the Prince William Digital Gateway?\n\nPrince William County supervisors approved the rezonings 4-3 on December 13, 2023 for QTS and Compass. A circuit judge voided them in August 2025 over defective public notice, and the Virginia Court of Appeals agreed on March 31, 2026. The county and Compass stopped defending the case in April, and QTS withdrew its last appeal on July 2, 2026, ending the project.\n\n### What is a large-load tariff for data centers?\n\nIt is a set of utility terms that makes very large customers, mostly data centers, commit to long contracts and minimum bills so other customers do not carry the cost of new grid and generation if the project leaves. Examples include AEP Ohio's tariff approved in July 2025, which requires payment for at least 85% of subscribed capacity for up to 12 years, and Dominion's GS-5 class in Virginia, which starts in January 2027 for customers of 25 MW or more.\n\n### How much new power generation have regulators approved for data centers?\n\nThere is no national total. In the approvals we tracked, state utility regulators in Georgia, Louisiana and Wisconsin certified roughly 13.3 GW of generation mainly for data center load, and air permits in Pennsylvania, Texas and Mississippi cleared about 11.6 GW of on-site gas generation, about 25 GW in all between May 2025 and March 2026. Treat that as a floor.\n\n### Are states cutting data center tax breaks?\n\nSome are pausing them. Ohio paused new offers of its sales tax exemption in May 2026, and Illinois stopped taking applications for its data center incentive on July 1, 2026. Virginia kept its exemption in its 2026-2028 budget but added an electricity consumption tax on data centers from July 1, 2026, while Georgia's governor vetoed a pause of that state's exemption in 2024.\n\n### What did the July 2025 executive order on data centers do?\n\nExecutive Order 14318, signed July 23, 2025, set out to speed federal permitting for AI data center projects that add more than 100 MW of load or commit at least $500 million. It directed new environmental review exclusions, faster federal permitting tracks and the use of federal land, and it revoked a January 2025 order on AI infrastructure. It does not replace state and local approvals.\n\n### Has Texas paused data center approvals?\n\nPartly. On August 3, 2026 Governor Greg Abbott directed state regulators and ERCOT to audit every data center in the grid interconnection queue before more advance, and ERCOT delayed its large-load study process. ERCOT said the verification would take several months, and projects that build their own power off the grid were not clearly covered.\n\nDiscover your brand's visibility in AI search effortlessly", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/every-major-us-data-center-approval-state-by-state-2019-2026", "canonical_source": "https://llmpulse.ai/blog/data-center-approvals/", "published_at": "2026-11-15 21:04:38+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-11-15 21:20:13.014955+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Georgia Power", "Meta", "LLM Pulse", "Doña Ana County", "Prince William County", "PW Digital Gateway", "Amazon", "Microsoft"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/every-major-us-data-center-approval-state-by-state-2019-2026", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/every-major-us-data-center-approval-state-by-state-2019-2026.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/every-major-us-data-center-approval-state-by-state-2019-2026.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/every-major-us-data-center-approval-state-by-state-2019-2026.jsonld"}}