Fidelity Investments became the first company to take advantage of tax breaks recently signed into law by Nebraska government to attract data center construction projects to the state.

Nebraska governor Dave Heineman’s office announced Friday that Fidelity had decided to build a massive data center in the City of Papillion. The company will invest at least US$200m into the project – a minimum investment commitment required to take advantage of the new tax breaks.

“To have Fidelity Investments, an outstanding company, utilize the Nebraska Advantage incentive helps us set the bar for other quality companies weighing location considerations for future data center projects,” Heineman said in a statement.

The state expects construction at the site to start immediately, with the goal of bringing the data center online in 2014. Once operational, the facility is expected to employ 30-35 people.

The Nebraska Advantage incentive the governor referred to in his statement is a set of economic development incentives. In March, the state government added additional tax incentives for data center projects that cost $200m or more to this set.

Incentives for data centers include sales- and use-tax refunds, property tax exemptions and refunds on IT hardware and software purchases.

Nebraska lawmakers rushed these tax breaks and one other bill through the legislative process earlier this year as the state was in competition with other states for Fidelity’s data center project, then codenamed “Project Photon”, and a data center project by another unnamed company codenamed “Project Edge.”

Project Edge is expected to be a much larger investment. The Omaha World-Herald reported in February that the company behind this project was planning to invest a total of about $1.2bn.

The second bill signed into law in March along with tax breaks for data centers was one that let publicly owned utilities negotiate lower energy rates for data centers. According to Heineman’s office, low power rates were also a factor in Fidelity’s decision to build in Nebraska.