West Memphis Mayor Marco McLendon (right) shakes hands with Entergy Corp. President and CEO Andrew Marsh at Google’s formal announcement of a $4 billion data center project on Oct. 2, 2025. (Photo by Ainsley Platt/Arkansas Advocate)
FOMO has broken out across Arkansas, as elected officials, unelected economic developers, utility companies and their regulators fall all over themselves not to miss out on the AI-fueled data center boom, a competition characterized by hyperbole, secrecy and healthy doses of wishful thinking.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and state legislators are fueling the campaign to turn Arkansas into a mecca for data centers, expanding a sales tax exemption for new projects and allowing Entergy Arkansas and other utilities to bill consumers for the expanded generating capacity needed to satiate data centers’ voracious appetite for electricity…