Northeast Oklahoma is turning into a data center cluster, with existing Google capacity in Pryor and at least four more large builds proposed by White Rose Partners and Beale Infrastructure.
The draw is classic AI infra math: cheap land, relatively low-cost power, and a labor pool local officials say can support large-scale facilities.
Local resistance centers on water and grid impact, which matters as AI-heavy data centers drive high, often continuous power demand and substantial cooling loads.
White Rose is signaling efficiency and a willingness to pay for infrastructure upgrades, while PSO and Southwest Power Pool say the regional grid can accommodate the new load without sacrificing reliability.
Investments are big by regional standards—Google’s $9 billion in Muskogee County and Beale’s $1 billion in Tulsa County—so cities are trading resource and environmental risk for tax base and high-wage jobs.
Nothing here is explicitly branded “AI,” but the timing, scale, and power planning read like GPU-era builds that will lean hard on transmission capacity and long-haul energy imports.
The piece is useful as a ground-level look at how secondary markets are courting hyperscale and AI data center capital while negotiating water and power constraints.
Source: Why are companies trying to build so many data centers in Green Country? – Newson6.com
