The Compass Datacenters hyperscale campus in Meridian, Mississippi, got tagged as 2025’s “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” because of deep, long-term tax breaks with questionable local payoff.
The project is massive on paper: eight data centers over eight years, a stated $10 billion total investment, and a 500 MW power draw that will more than double the load of Mississippi Power’s current largest customer.
The Center for Economic Accountability argues the subsidies and abatements shift costs to residents and other businesses, especially via pressure on regional energy affordability and grid capacity.
Unlike Amazon’s Mississippi data center build, Compass is not committing to fund or build additional power generation, which makes this deal stand out from an energy and infrastructure risk perspective.
Operationally, the site is still early enough that visible progress is mostly “dirt moving,” raising questions about timing, real job creation, and how quickly the state will actually see returns.
For AI infrastructure watchers, this is a clear example of hyperscale GPU-era builds colliding with local politics, power constraints, and subsidy fatigue in smaller markets.
Worth reading in full if you care about how data center incentives, grid strain, and vendor strategies are starting to face organized public pushback.
Source: This MS project named America’s worst development for 2025
