Project dossier · Meridian, Mississippi

Compass Datacenters Meridian Under construction

$10B, 500MW campus with 8 facilities in Meridian, Mississippi. Under construction.

Key facts

Operator: Compass Datacenters
Size: 500 MW
Location: Meridian, Mississippi
Stage today: Under construction

What to do next

Next step: Under construction — pull the approved conditions and permits and hold the builder to them; an expansion or a new building reopens the record.

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What has happened so far (12 events)

2025-01-01coverage
Mississippi State University and state leaders publicly welcomed Compass Datacenters arrival in Meridian. · source
2025-01-09announcement
Compass Datacenters announced plans to build an eight-building, 500MW hyperscale campus in the I-20/59 industrial park in Lauderdale County (Meridian), representing a $10 billion investment. Gov. Reeves called it a monumental economic development win. · source
2025-01-17coverage
Meridian Star editorial credits months of closed-door discussions between EMBDC, Lauderdale County Supervisors, City of Meridian, and Mississippi Power for landing the Compass project. · source
2025-01-28construction
Compass Datacenters held its official groundbreaking ceremony near the I-20/I-59 corridor in Lauderdale County, attended by Gov. Reeves, PSC Commissioner Stamps, and Compass VP Katie Hancock. · source
2025-02-01incentive
Mississippi Development Authority certified Compass as a data center operator, granting 10-year state income/franchise tax exemptions plus sales/use tax exemption on construction materials, equipment, and software/hardware replacements. · source
2025-02-07utility
Mississippi Public Service Commission approved the special electric service contract between Mississippi Power and Compass Datacenters Jan I, LLC, clearing the way for ~500MW of supply to the campus. · source
2025-02-25filing
Mississippi Senate unanimously passed SB 3168, updating the state Data Center Enterprise incentive program (raising investment thresholds, adding an electricity tax exemption, allowing automatic 10-year extensions). · source
2025-12-29coverage
Center for Economic Accountability named Mississippi Compass Datacenters/Lauderdale County tax-break package the nation Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year for 2025, citing the length and breadth of tax exemptions versus minimal disclosed local benefit. · source
2026-05-08public-comment
Compass held a lunch and learn informational session at the MSU Riley Center; residents raised concerns about rising electricity and water bills, and Compass VP Sarah Ridgely responded the campus uses closed-loop water cooling. · source
2026-07-15coverage
Lauderdale County officials issued a statement strongly supporting the Compass project as transformational, citing 1,000+ construction jobs and hundreds of permanent jobs. · source
2026-07-16hearing
Mississippi Legislature AI Task Force held a two-day hearing on data center impacts; Compass SVP Brent Collard testified the company invested $300 million in Meridian grid infrastructure and created 6,400 long-term jobs, while other testimony raised statewide concerns about noise, air pollution, and water draw. · source
2026-07-31coverage
Compass and Meridian Community College launched Mississippi first data center workforce training program (14-week MEI Data Center Pathway) with Compass funding full-tuition scholarships for an inaugural cohort of 12 students. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

Mississippi DEQ — Air DivisionThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
Search Mississippi DEQ — Air Division for this projectsearchThis state publishes no searchable permit database, so a written records request to the agency is the reliable route. Use this search only to find the right office.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Search Meridian planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Meridian property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

MISO (Midwest & Gulf) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
Mississippi Public Service Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site.
EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Mississippi briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Mississippi

AWS Madison County data center campuses — Madison County Proposed
Amazon Madison Mega Site — Canton (Madison County) Operating
Amazon Ridgeland — Ridgeland Under construction
Clarksdale hyperscale data center site — Clarksdale (Coahoma County) In review
Saxum Investment Data Center — Jackson In review

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Compass Datacenters Meridian”, aigridwatch.com/projects/compass-meridian-ms, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).