of 2024, Arizona had 804 megawatts of existing inventory and about 1,304 megawatts, or roughly one gigawatt, under construction, according to research from real estate firm JLL.
One gigawatt of power is enough to power a small city, or more than 200,000 homes.
The largest data center market in the U.S. is northern Virginia, according to JLL. At the end of 2024, that market had 1,934 megawatts existing, another 1,071 under construction and 2,416 megawatts planned. The largest single data center development in the world is in China.
Vinland’s site spans about four miles in unincorporated Pinal County. The company filed a rezoning application for the site about four months ago, he said, and he expects the approval process to be complete next year.
The project will include upgrading power lines in the area to supply the site, he said. There are transmission lines from both APS and the Western Area Power Administration, or WAPA, which are controlled through SRP, on the project would involve upgrading the WAPA lines to 230 kilovolts, up from the existing 69 kilovolts.
Eventually, Verma said he expects the site to be powered by a mix of sources, including solar energy. The land is adjacent to two large-scale solar projects, including one that is owned by south of the property but also owned by Fermanland. The company also has an application in at the Arizona State Land Department to buy adjacent land for an additional solar facility, Verma said.
They plan to develop a natural gas plant simultaneously with the construction of the first phases of the data center, to power the center until the solar plants are complete and able to serve the site.
“The gas turbines would be for the initial phase, and they would stay there, but would only be for emergency or situation after the solar is connected,” he said.
Verma said there are some wells on the site that the company could buy adjacent water rights, but he expects the data centers to use cooling infrastructure that does not involve large volumes of water.
“The technology is getting better, we can have more efficient air cooling and other types of cooling,” he said. “Because water is a concern here, we want to build a project where we truly have to.”
Companies could buy buildings or sites in the data center complex or rent space, Verma said. Construction on the first phase could begin in the next two to three years.
“This market is expanding so rapidly that buildout could happen over the next 10 years,” Verma said. “There is so much demand for data center facilities when AI generation is kicking in.”
The project would be Arizona’s largest data center. Another large-scale data center project, a $25 billion development planned for 2,500 acres in Tonopah, is in the works by KORE Land Consulting, led by Anita Verma Lallian. She is with Verma’s daughter Charmeh Palhapitiya, CEO of Social Capital. Verma-Lallian is Verma’s daughter, but the two projects are not affiliated with one another.
According to JLL research, at the end of 2024 Phoenix only had about 2% vacancy for data center space, and most new facilities were being pre-leased before they could complete construction..
