Land & Expand is Data Center Frontier’s periodic roundup of notable North American data center development activity, tracking the newest sites, land plays, retrofits, and hyperscale campus expansions shaping the industry’s build cycle.
October delivered a steady cadence of announcements, with several megascale projects advancing from concept to commitment. The month was defined by continued momentum in OpenAI and Oracle’s Stargate initiative (now spanning multiple U.S. regions) as well as major new investments from Google, Meta, DataBank, and emerging AI cloud players accelerating high-density reuse strategies.
The result is a clearer picture of how the next wave of AI-first infrastructure is taking shape across the country.
Google Begins $4B West Memphis Hyperscale Buildout
Google formally broke ground on its $4 billion hyperscale campus in West Memphis, Arkansas, marking the company’s first data center in the state and the anchor for a new Mid-South operational hub. The project spans just over 1,000 acres, with initial site preparation and utility coordination already underway.
Google and Entergy Arkansas confirmed a 600 MW solar generation partnership, structured to add dedicated renewable supply to the regional grid. As part of the launch, Google announced a $25 million Energy Impact Fund for local community affordability programs and energy-resilience improvements—an unusually early community-benefit commitment for a first-phase hyperscale project.
Cooling specifics have not yet been made public. Water sourcing—whether reclaimed, potable, or hybrid seasonal mode—remains under review, as the company finalizes environmental permits. Public filings reference a large-scale onsite water treatment facility, similar to Google’s deployments in The Dalles and Council Bluffs.
Local governance documents show that prior to the October announcement, West Memphis approved a 30-year PILOT via Groot LLC (Google’s land assembly entity), with early filings referencing a typical placeholder of ~50 direct jobs. At launch, officials emphasized hundreds of full-time operations roles and thousands of construction jobs—indicating scaling phases that extend through 2027.
The site complements Google’s Southeastern clusters while offering low-latency east-west links across the company’s U.S. backbone network.
DataBank Advances Culpeper Campus Toward 192 MW AI-Ready Capacity
DataBank broke ground on its 85-acre Culpeper, Virginia campus, originally acquired in 2023, and now designed to support up to 1.4 million sq ft of hyperscale data centers. This includes two confirmed buildings—IAD5 (225,000 sq ft, 72 MW) and IAD6 (383,000 sq ft, 120 MW)—with AI/HPC-ready “Universal Data Hall” architecture baked into the base design.
The campus is enabled by a Dominion-built 300 MW on-site substation, planned to support 192 MW critical IT at full buildout. Dominion’s filings with the Virginia SCC (as part of the broader Culpeper Tech Zone docket) include a package of new 230 kV lines, station upgrades, and network reinforcements that also support neighboring campuses.
This makes Culpeper one of the first regions in Virginia where county-level zoning, utility planning, and hyperscale development were coordinated as a unified package.
DataBank expects its first building to come online in 2027, with power delivery sequencing dependent on the Culpeper Tech Zone grid upgrade window.
Meta and Blue Owl Capital Launch 4M-Sq-Ft Hyperion Campus in Louisiana
Meta and Blue Owl Capital announced the Hyperion AI campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana, spanning more than 4 million sq ft and backed by a $27 billion joint venture structure. Blue Owl is providing the capital and long-term ownership; Meta will manage construction and operations—an increasingly common hybrid model as hyperscalers diversify financing sources for multi-billion-dollar AI builds.
The campus represents Meta’s next wave of AI-first design, incorporating high-density single-story halls, multi-mode cooling (air + liquid), and long-lived energy-delivery infrastructure in partnership with local utilities. Meta documentation emphasizes a build sequence optimized for accelerated AI cluster deployment rather than general-purpose cloud.
State filings point to extensive community investment, including local hiring, workforce training pathways, and utility-scale upgrades to support multi-hundred-MW delivery. Hyperion positions Louisiana as a new node in Meta’s AI-ready southern U.S. footprint.
Stargate Midwest: Vantage Begins Work on the Port Washington "Lighthouse" Campus
Vantage Data Centers officially began development on the Stargate Midwest site in Port Washington, Wisconsin—internally referred to as “Lighthouse”—which forms one of the key anchor nodes in OpenAI and Oracle’s planned 4.5 GW Stargate expansion.
The program’s total investment has been reported at $15 billion, with Lighthouse slated for completion around 2028. Public filings and site plans describe multi-building single-story hyperscale shells with phased infrastructure rollouts, optimized for GPU cluster densification beyond Blackwell-era designs.
State economic development documents highlight the project’s expected role in regional grid planning, as Wisconsin utilities prepare for multi-hundred-MW data-center loads for the first time at this scale.
Lambda AI Accelerates Kansas City Retrofit Toward 100 MW+
Lambda announced the retrofit of a dormant 2009 enterprise facility in Kansas City’s Northland into a high-density AI compute center, targeting early 2026 for initial energization.
Phase 1 calls for 24 MW, with a path to 100 MW+, centered on the deployment of 10,000+ NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs dedicated to a single customer under a multi-year deal. Lambda emphasized that the site was chosen chiefly because it had substantial pre-existing utility service, enabling faster time-to-GPU than a greenfield build.
The project leverages Missouri’s Data Center Sales Tax Exemption Program, which requires minimum investment and job-creation thresholds. Local TV and state economic development reports frame the facility as a $500 million supercomputer hub with phased job creation ramping over time.
Lambda describes the reuse as “futureproofing unused power”—a characterization increasingly common as AI cloud providers scour secondary markets for brownfield assets capable of rapid high-density conversion.
Stargate Michigan: A 1-GW+ Anchor for OpenAI and Oracle’s National Footprint
The late-October announcement of Stargate Michigan in Saline Township (Washtenaw County) introduced one of the most ambitious hyperscale projects disclosed this year: a 1+ gigawatt campus developed by Related Digital on a 250-acre site. It forms one of the cornerstone nodes in OpenAI and Oracle’s expanded Stargate program.
The project includes three initial 550,000 sq ft single-story buildings (~1.65M sq ft), with LEED certification, structured setbacks, and extensive environmental design, consistent with Related’s development approach in mixed urban-rural zones.
A defining feature is its location adjacent to a high-voltage transmission corridor identified by DTE Energy as having “excess transmission capacity.” This enables large-scale interconnection without requiring new generation, reducing local rate-impact concerns and accelerating regulatory timelines.
Related Digital’s community benefits package includes $14 million for fire services, farmland preservation, and a community fund; more than 2,500 union construction jobs; and 450+ permanent roles at full build.
OpenAI notes that Michigan’s inclusion pushes its planned U.S. capacity (with Oracle) past 8 GW, with combined investment expected to exceed $450 billion over the next three years.
