A new data center development is being planned in southern Ohio.

First reported by WSAZ, a company behind the affiliate Tilted Gate LLC is looking to develop a data center in Scioto County. The Scioto County commission said the center would be built in the Franklin Furnace area, specifically the Haverhill part of the county.

The Scioto County commission has made its own announcement about the project, saying the 500,000 sq ft (46,452 sqm), $1 billion project could receive a 75 percent tax abatement for 15 years as part of a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement of $500,000 annually. The commission will meet to vote on that abatement on January 22.

Further details about the project and the company behind it haven’t been shared. During a meeting this week, the commission said it is bound under an NDA and cannot share more details yet, but noted discussions have been ongoing with a “Fortune 100 tech company” since midway through last year. Another data center company is also said to be interested in the same privately-owned site.

Franklin Furnace and Haverhill are located on the very southern border of Ohio with Kentucky, along the Ohio River.

Cloud providers Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, as well as social media giant Meta, are present across Ohio and expanding their footprints in the Buckeye State. Many data center developers and operators, including QTS, EdgeConneX, Prologis, CyrusOne, Edged, Vantage, Aligned, and numerous others are also present in the state, mostly around Columbus.

Another data center project is also potentially being eyed in nearby Pike County. WOUB and the Scioto Valley Guardian report that the recently-founded New Day Data Centers LLC is proposing to develop a data center campus at the Department of Energy (DOE) owned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Scioto Township.

No further details are available.

Constructed in the 1950s and located south of Piketon, the plant previously produced enriched uranium, including highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, for the United States Atomic Energy Commission, the US nuclear weapons program, and Navy submarines. In later years, it produced low-enriched uranium for fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors.

The former gaseous diffusion plant covers 640 acres of the 3,775-acre site. Much of the site, including the diffusion plant, has been shut down and is undergoing decontamination, though other parts of the wider campus continue to operate.

The DOE listed the plant as one of 16 sites on federal land for "rapid data center construction last year.