Google Little Rock Port data center, Little Rock, Arkansas

Google's planned $1 billion data center at the Port of Little Rock, in Pulaski County, Arkansas, known as Project Boar, would put five industrial buildings totaling 1.43 million square feet, two office buildings and an electrical substation off Zueber Road, just east of Harper Road in Sweet Home. Google told the Little Rock Board of Directors in June 2026 that it has not yet decided to build.

In April 2025 the board approved a memorandum of understanding to sell 380 acres at the port to Willowbend Capital LLC, the front company Google uses for the project, and the land has since been rezoned for heavy industry. Google was not revealed as the developer until an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report in January 2026, and city and economic development officials say they signed nondisclosure agreements. Under the memorandum, Google would pay $300,000 a year, plus $200,000 for each additional data center, and receive a property tax abatement of at least 65% for 30 years. The project's permit notice from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it will likely draw more than 100 megawatts, and the developers want to fill about 16 acres of wetlands near Fourche Creek. Google plans to offset the wetland loss by buying mitigation bank credits.

The filing does not say how much water or electricity the campus would use. Entergy Arkansas plans about 2,600 megawatts of new generation over five years, in part for data centers, and much of that cost will fall on its customers; the terms of Google's deal with the utility have not been disclosed. At a nearly five-hour board meeting on June 2, 2026, residents criticized the project and asked for a moratorium instead of new rules. "They're immediately going to think about the mayor and the board of directors that let it happen", resident Tobias Peoples said of rising utility rates. George Wise of the local Sierra Club said of Entergy's promise that bills would not rise: "What's a pledge? What's a pledge? I don't believe it".

The board approved Mayor Frank Scott Jr.'s data center regulations for the city's industrial zones by voice vote that night. Scott said the rules could be strengthened, and that a 2023 state law, Act 851, keeps local governments from banning data centers outright. "A final decision to build is only made after all diligence and public reviews are complete, and, candidly, we have not reached that point," said Google representative Laurel Brown.

Five hyperscale data center projects are in development across central and eastern Arkansas. A similar $1 billion project in Conway was filed by Forgelight Ventures LLC, whose incorporator, Michael Montfort, also incorporated Willowbend, and Google has committed $4 billion to its Project Pyramid campus in West Memphis. Pulaski County, which lacks Little Rock's zoning rules, tried to pass a data center moratorium in late May, but officials later said it had not passed because of a vote-counting error.

What happens next depends on the Army Corps wetlands permit, which the port's director said could take two to six months, and on Google's own decision to build. The Little Rock Board of Directors sets the city's data center rules.