Benefits Beyond Connectivity

Mississippi’s data center industry is one of the fastest growing in the state’s economy, delivering measurable returns to communities from the Jackson metro to the Delta and the Gulf Coast. Since 2024, Amazon has announced $25 billion in data center investment across Madison, Hinds and Warren counties, and Compass Datacenters is building a $10 billion, eight-building campus in Meridian – just two examples of data center companies making significant investments across the state.

According to data from PwC, in 2024, Mississippi’s data center industry:

• • Contributed approximately $1.3 billion to the state’s GDP
  • Generated an estimated $140 million in state and local tax revenue
  • Provided more than $768 million in labor income
  • Supported more than 13,700 total jobs across the state

The data center industry supports more than 13,000 jobs for Mississippians. From data center technicians and facility managers to electricians, network engineers, and cybersecurity specialists, data centers allow Mississippians to stay and work in their own communities.

For example, Amazon’s $25 billion investment is expected to create 2,000 high-skilled data center jobs, with more than 75 Mississippi companies and thousands of construction workers, electricians, and operational staff engaged in Madison County alone. Meanwhile, Compass Datacenters’ Meridian campus will create thousands of direct and indirect jobs over its eight-year buildout.

Data centers in Mississippi are committed to responsible and efficient water use. For example, some Mississippi data centers don’t use water for cooling 91% of the year, while others consume even less once operational. And many new data centers are designed to utilize reused or recycled water.

Nationally, data center water-related spending on municipal utility upgrades, on-site treatment and reuse systems is projected to exceed $4.1 billion through 2030, contributing to investments that modernize water systems for the whole country.

Data centers are highly energy-efficient facilities that help enable energy savings for homes and businesses. The industry prioritizes increasing energy efficiency, and facilities are designed to optimize energy use across their operations.

Data centers are helping fund new energy projects—enough to power 8 million U.S. homes. And through Entergy Mississippi’s Superpower Mississippi initiative, data centers are funding $300 million in grid improvements, at no cost to existing rate payers. This will deliver a 50% improvement in grid reliability across the state.

Additionally, under Entergy’s Fair Share Plus pledge, data centers pay 100% of their own costs to connect to and use the grid. The industry is also helping fund $300 million in grid improvements at no additional cost to Entergy Mississippi customers, helping limit rate increases through 2030.

Keeping data centers on American soil is critical to our national security. Data centers ensure U.S. competitiveness in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies that are essential to our continued economic leadership and national security.

Mississippi is part of that mission. Mississippi State University’s Orion supercomputer, funded by NOAA and among the fastest in U.S. academia, powers research in weather and climate forecasting, cybersecurity, and autonomous systems for the university’s Center for Cyber Innovation and the FAA’s ASSURE unmanned-aircraft alliance. All of it depends on secure, reliable data center infrastructure built right here in Mississippi.

Data centers are essential infrastructure for future technological and environmental advancements. They support the digitization of our economy, widespread vehicles and building electrification, the onshoring of advanced manufacturing, growth in controlled environment agriculture, and other 21st-century economic drivers.