Data centers in Boyd County, Kentucky: 2 projects mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Two large data centers are proposed in Boyd County. TeraWulf has bought about 285 acres at EastPark Industrial Park near Ashland for the Muskie Data Campus, planned at 1,000 megawatts of power, with the first 500 megawatts due from the second half of 2028. Rubix, a new subsidiary of the Barcelona cooling company Submer, has proposed a data center of up to 2,000 megawatts, costing up to $12 billion, on the site of the former AK Steel mill. The county's six-month moratorium on new data centers, passed July 9, 2026, runs to January 2027 but exempts EastPark.

Judge-Executive Eric Chaney said EastPark was left out because it belongs to a regional authority with Carter, Elliott, Greenup and Lawrence counties: "We would be imposing that upon Elliott County." At a June meeting TeraWulf projected $307.9 million for Boyd County over 15 years, including about $190.5 million for schools. It said it would build four buildings and lease them to one customer, not yet named, on an initial 15-year lease.

Residents at that meeting pressed the company on water, power bills and the tenant. TeraWulf said each building needs about 400,000 gallons of cooling fluid when first filled, replaced about every 10 years, and that the whole campus would use under 5,000 gallons of drinking water a day once running. Kentucky Power is building a new substation for the site. "I want to see the data and research to understand the real impacts," resident Natasha Kinnan told WCHS.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.