Grant County Data Center, Sheridan, Arkansas

Clean Cloud Energy, an Austin, Texas-based company, has proposed an 800-megawatt data center on a 753-acre site outside Sheridan, in Grant County, Arkansas, valued by county officials at $8 billion to $12 billion. County Judge Randy Pruitt told the Quorum Court in July 2026 that global developer EdgeConneX had signed a letter of intent for the project, and said the county had not begun negotiating with the company over taxes.

Clean Cloud Energy first proposed a 500-megawatt data center and 400-megawatt solar farm a year earlier, estimated at $5 billion to $6 billion; the data center grew to 800 megawatts after the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. secured more electrical capacity. The Quorum Court passed a resolution in October 2025 letting county leaders learn more about the plan, without finalizing any agreement, and residents protested outside the courthouse in Sheridan. "It's concerning. It's nerve-wracking in what it's going to do to our property values and our way of life," said Brody Channell, who lives near the proposed site.

An advisory group Pruitt assembled, drawing on public surveys, wrote six conditions a company must meet to be considered for a tax abatement, a reduction in property taxes. "We don't want to see it, hear it or smell it," said Justice of the Peace Mike Nevens, one of the advisers. "We don't want it to ruin our water table, we don't want it to raise electric rates for our citizens, and we don't want it to ruin our internet." Meeting all six conditions qualifies a company for a 20% tax abatement.

To reach the full 65% abatement allowed under the state's Act 9 bond law, the end user would have to pay the county close to $57 million up front, including $7.5 million to cut $1,000 off each property owner's taxes, plus $12.4 million a year afterward. Breaking the conditions would cost $1 million in fines and could void the abatement. "We want the public to know that there is going to be teeth in this agreement," Pruitt said.

The county requires a closed-loop, air-chilled cooling system, and Pruitt said no Grant County official has signed a nondisclosure agreement. EdgeConneX's letter of intent gives it 120 days of due diligence, with an option for 30 more, and its representatives have visited the site and begun environmental tests. "But we have not negotiated with them at this point; it's just too early for that," Pruitt said.