Mississippi Data Center Investment Tracker

The Olive Branch Planning Commission unanimously voted to deny the DeSoto Innovation District rezoning, and the data center conditional use was removed from the plan at the commission's 9 June meeting, according to the city's planning director. On 4 August the Board of Mayor and Aldermen tabled the 562-acre project after a three-hour hearing where many of the more than 100 residents present opposed it, some citing concern that a data center could return in later phases. A motion to approve only the first-phase landfill expansion and deny the industrial rezoning failed 4-3.

The Jackson City Council approved a 183-day moratorium on data center development by a 5-2 vote, described as Mississippi's first. Council members said the capital city was not ready for a data center.

The Olive Branch Board of Mayor and Aldermen unanimously approved an ordinance, effective immediately, that allows data centers in the M-1 and M-2 industrial zones only as a conditional use instead of by right. The rules bar data centers without closed-loop cooling, restrict generator use between 2 and 5 p.m., set nighttime and daytime noise limits for hyperscale sites and require developers to pay full decommissioning costs. The city's planning director said Olive Branch could not adopt a moratorium, citing litigation risk.

After a public hearing on 22 September 2026, the Walls Planning Commission voted to deny a request to rezone roughly 1,200 acres from Agricultural Residential to M-1 Light Industrial, which would have opened the land to possible data center construction. Residents cited proximity to Lake Cormorant schools, a historic site and the xAI plant in Southaven. The Board of Aldermen has the final say, and no date had been set.

xAI's Southaven site runs gas turbines to power its Memphis-area data centers, and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality issued an air permit for 41 permanent turbines. The NAACP filed a challenge in April 2026 alleging significant pollutant emissions and contesting the permit. Three Southaven residents filed suit in June 2026 alleging near-constant noise and vibration harming their health. The plant continues to operate. On 30 July 2026 the Mississippi Commission of Environmental Quality and MZX Tech LLC entered an Agreed Order covering the 69 mobile turbines at the Stanton Road facility, setting a retirement schedule after supply chain delays pushed back some of the 41 permitted stationary turbines. SpaceXAI said all temporary turbines would be removed by July 2027 as its 1.2 GW permanent plant comes online, and announced on 31 August 2026 that 11 of the 69 turbines had been powered down. A class action over turbine noise is pending in the US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi On 30 July 2026 SpaceX announced an agreement with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality setting a timeline to remove all 69 temporary mobile turbines at the Southaven power site, starting as early as August and finishing by July 2027, as the 1.2 GW permanent plant of 41 turbines permitted in March 2026 comes online. On 23 September 2026 Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and Greer Injury Lawyers filed a federal class action in Tennessee against X.AI Corp and MZX Tech LLC on behalf of southern Memphis residents, alleging noise ordinance violations, private and public nuisance, negligence, negligence per se and trespass from the data centers and gas-turbine plant on the Tennessee and Mississippi border. It seeks damages, abatement and an injunction to cease operations unless they can run without harming the community. Earlier, on 6 May 2026, the NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, asked the federal court for a preliminary injunction to stop operation of the unpermitted turbines, saying xAI and MZX Tech had added six turbines after the February 2026 notice, bringing the total to 33.