Anthropic Data Center Project Advances in Kentucky

November 6, 2026

Google will provide credit support for this massive development.

Aerial of the development site where the Justified Data Campus, a data center project, will take shape in Hawesville, Ky. — Justified Data Campus will rise on a former aluminum smelter site in Hawesville, Ky, *Image courtesy of TeraWulf*

TeraWulf has secured a credit support agreement with Google for Justified Data Campus in Hawesville, Ky. The deal will help the company obtain debt financing for the project, backed by up to $19 billion in contracted lease commitments from Anthropic.

At the same time, TeraWulf signed an engineering, procurement and construction agreement with Fluor Corp. for the development of three data center facilities at the campus. Upon delivery, they will provide up to 480 megawatts of critical IT capacity. Under the agreement, phased completions are expected to begin in late 2027 and continue through the second quarter of 2028.

Fluor initially joined the project in March 2026, following a limited notice to proceed. The firm’s Advanced Technologies unit was tapped to provide engineering, master planning and preconstruction services for the development, which has an estimated cost between $3 billion and $4 billion, according to Engineering News-Record.

Justified Data Campus is set to rise on a former aluminum smelter site that was owned by Century Aluminum. The firm had closed production in 2022, following a 12-month shutdown due to unstable energy costs. This February, TeraWulf bought the property in a $200 million, all-cash deal, according to Recycling Today.

The 790-acre site will be transformed into an advanced data center campus designed for research and digital innovation. Plans also include the repurposing of already existing infrastructure.

The Justified Data Campus development will add a significant number of full-time jobs once delivered, as well as apprenticeship opportunities, while prospective AI and HPC tenants will also create new jobs across operations, services and other supporting roles.

Surging data center demand spills over to secondary markets

The sector is experiencing unprecedented growth driven by hyperscalers, neoclouds and AI companies, with demand for data centers doubling over the year, according to a report by JLL. Companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta and Oracle continue to drive demand across the industry.

Capital markets activity for development is also reaching record levels. Data center construction activity is expected to drive more than $700 billion in permanent debt originations over the next 30 months, the report also shows. While Virginia remains the world’s largest hub, there are multiple other secondary and tertiary markets in the U.S. where lower energy costs and land availability attract new projects and capital.

New data center developments in the Southeast

In Kentucky, a former uranium enrichment site is set to become one of the largest AI data center campuses in the U.S. The $100 billion, privately funded investment project in Paducah, to be developed and operated by Brookfield, will have 1.8 gigawatts of capacity once delivered.

In North Carolina, WhiteFiber acquired two industrial properties in Yadkin County, with plans to retrofit the buildings into data center structures. The resulting campus will have up to 200 megawatts of capacity.

And in Georgia, OpenAI will build a $20 billion, 3.2-gigawatt data center campus at the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub in Rincon. It will be the first ground-up complex developed by the company in house.