Fear of Missing Out on data center boom leads Arkansas officials to ignore hard questions

Fear of Missing Out on data center boom leads Arkansas officials to ignore hard questions

West Memphis Mayor Marco McLendon (right) shakes hands with Entergy Corp. President and CEO Andrew Marsh at Google's formal announcement of a $4 billion data center project on Oct. 2, 2025. (Photo by Ainsley Platt/Arkansas Advocate) FOMO has broken out across Arkansas, as elected officials, unelected economic developers, utility companies and their regulators fall all over themselves not to miss out on the AI-fueled data center boom, a competiti…