How to track Tennessee data centers

Our analysis: treat a site purchase, an announcement, a permit, a power agreement and operation as separate milestones. xAI’s Tulane Road purchase, MLGW’s service statement and the Paul R. Lowry Road air permit are three different kinds of record. [DatacenterDynamics; Memphis Light, Gas and Water; The Commercial Appeal]

Meta’s November 2024 post is an operator confirmation that Gallatin serves traffic. [Meta] Google’s location page lists Montgomery County. [Google]

Our analysis: prefer the operator’s own page for operating status, and keep an announcement date distinct from an operating date.

Meta’s 2020 post described more than $800 million; its 2024 post says the full build-out will exceed $1.5 billion. [Meta; Meta]

Our analysis: record which figure applies to which scope and date. GPU targets such as the Chamber’s one-million-GPU expansion are plans, not counts. [Greater Memphis Chamber]

Our analysis: for Memphis projects, start with MLGW statements and Shelby County Health Department air-permit records; for state economic-development announcements, start with the Department of Economic and Community Development. [Memphis Light, Gas and Water; Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development]

Our analysis: keep four dates apart for every record: the date a source was published, the date the desk reviewed it, the date a decision or approval took effect, and the date anything actually started operating. A review date on this site never turns an older announcement into new news, and a planned figure is never presented as a delivered one.

Our analysis: when a field such as investment, power or employment is not disclosed in a cited record, the desk leaves it blank rather than estimating it. A blank is unknown, not zero, and readers should ask the controlling party for the actual document before relying on any number. County boundaries come from the Census Gazetteer so that every record can be tied to one of Tennessee’s 95 counties. [U.S. Census Bureau]

Our analysis: corrections are welcome. If a cited page changes, moves or is superseded by a newer agency decision, the desk updates the record with the new source and its own date rather than silently rewriting the old claim. Readers making a consequential decision should consult the controlling agency record and qualified professionals.