Australian mining and energy company Fortescue could receive zoning permission to build a data center in the town of Buckeye, Arizona.

On February 10, the Buckeye Area and Planning Commission voted to recommend the approval of a request to modify the zoning of a 158 acre land parcel at the northwest corner of State Route 85 and Patterson Road.

If the Buckeye City Council approves the request, the applicant, Phoenix Hydrogen Hub LLC, a Fortescue subsidiary, would be able to build a data center.

Phoenix Hydrogen Hub was the name of a proposed hydrogen plant backed by Fortescue.

But the bankruptcy of the plant's main customer, the battery-electric truck company Nikola, and the Trump administration’s rollback of government support for green energy led the company to abandon the project last summer.

“We’ll explore future opportunities for our site in Arizona,” said CEO Gus Pichot during an investor call last year.

Details about the capacity of the data center were not revealed, and it is unclear whether Fortescue intends to construct a smaller hydrogen production plant as well as a data center.

When Fortescue was still on-track to develop the original hydrogen production plant, the company had said that the first phase would involve the construction of an 80MW electrolyzer and liquefaction facility.

Buckeye is located west of the state capital, Phoenix, one of the US’ major data center hubs.

Several large-scale data center developments are set to be built in Buckeye. This includes the 1.8GW campus being developed by data center park company Tract, as well as a potential 1.5GW data center to be developed by property company Arizona Land Consulting.