A first-of-its-kind data center in Kentucky is planned for Louisville, expected to draw major technology companies to the area as they face growing demands of artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
A 400-megawatt data center campus is in the works on some 150 acres in southwestern Louisville, with plans to open by late 2026, Virginia-based PowerHouse Data Centers and Louisville-based Poe Companies announced Thursday.
Developers are still in discussions on which tech company or companies will eventually operate at the site.
“It will be a substantial name, and it will be a substantial investment,” said Poe Companies president Hank Hillebrand.
A site concept plan shows the layout for a new data center coming to approximately 150 acres in southwest Jefferson County, a site developers say will be used by at least one major technology company.
Construction is anticipated to begin this year and will encompass between five to eight buildings along Camp Ground Road.
“These are large buildings filled with processing equipment, and that equipment requires a lot of power and it requires a lot of expertise on the part of people working in these facilities,” Hillebrand said.
He noted the January 2024 announcement that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, would build a data center at the River Ridge Commerce Center in Jeffersonville, Indiana, calling it a “bellwether” for the region as a growth area in the data center space.
“Louisville offers everything hyperscale users need — immediate and reliable power at very attractive rates, water, connectivity and a business environment that encourages more hyperscale growth in the region,” Doug Fleit, co-founder and CEO of PowerHouse, in a release.
Data centers are physical facilities that deal in ever-growing volumes of digital data. Hyperscale facilities, as the name would suggest, are large-scale operations built to handle massive amounts of data, an undertaking that requires lots of power.
A rendering shows the future PowerHouse Data Center campus in southwest Louisville, which is expected to be home to big names in the technology industry.
Big names needing hyperscale data centers include Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple, among others.
“These things require immense amounts of power and infrastructure,” Hillebrand said. “We’re in a part of the country where we can utilize our water resources.”
LG&E plans to build a new switch station, by September 2026, and add an on-site substation to support the project. The project marks the utility’s first hyperscale data center electric customer.
The first 130 megawatts will be available in October 2026. Initial power capacity at the site will be 335 megawatts with a planned “near-term” expansion to 402 megawatts, the company said in its release.
The project, an investment “in the billions,” is expected to support thousands of jobs that include short-term construction jobs and hundreds of longer-term tech jobs, Hillebrand said.
He pointed to LG&E, as well as the state legislature, for helping make the project a reality.
The 2024 General Assembly passed an up to 50-year sales tax break on equipment for data center projects in Jefferson County whose owner, operator or tenant makes a capital investment of at least $450 million or whose “project organizer” invests at least $150 million.
The site is already zoned for the intended use but the project’s development plan will still need city approval.
The project will sit on land along Camp Ground Road, roughly between Kramers and Lees lanes. Poe Companies has purchased multiple parcels along that stretch in recent years, deed records show.
While Poe Companies initially envisioned warehouses for logistics operations or manufacturing use at the site, it began exploring in fall 2023 the possibility of bringing a data center to the land.
PowerHouse, founded in 2021, has announced six other data center projects in the past 12 months, going vertical in cities including Charlotte, Dallas-Forth Worth and Reno, among others.
The company is a division of American Real Estate Partners, a Virginia-based developer of data centers as well as residential, industrial and office spaces. The company started in northern Virginia before expanding across the country, according to its website. It has 86 data centers completed or in various stages of development.
Reach growth and development reporter Matthew Glowicki at mglowicki@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4000.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Data center project aims to bring big tech companies to Louisville