A data center project could be coming to Franklin County, Virginia.

Local press, including WDBJ, 10News, and the Roanoke Times, report that officials have been in discussions with a data center developer about the potential 'Project Flash' data center.

Franklin County is located in southwest Virginia, south of Roanoke. News of the project was revealed via freedom of information requests made to Franklin County.

Few details are available, but Franklin County-owned Summit View Business Park may host the development if it goes ahead, and may total 50-100MW on some 150 acres.

The interested company behind the planned development is Crusoe. The company has been in discussions with county officials since November.

County officials and Crusoe didn’t provide comment to WDBJ.

Franklin County has released a statement acknowledging it has “received a number of questions from citizens” regarding economic development opportunities and how it evaluates them, but didn’t talk about Project Flash or Crusoe.

“Our goal is to pursue economic development opportunities that align with Franklin County's long-term vision and the interests of our community,” the county said. “We are committed to encouraging responsible economic growth that creates employment opportunities, strengthens the local tax base, and supports public services while protecting the quality of life that makes Franklin County a desirable place to live, work, and raise a family.”

It added: “Franklin County is committed to providing information to the public whenever it can be legally shared. If a project advances to a stage requiring public hearings or other public approvals, those processes will occur in accordance with Virginia law, and citizens will have the opportunity to participate.”

Summit View Business Park totals 540 acres located along US 220, and reportedly includes grid and natural gas infrastructure. The county first started buying land for the park in 2016.

Launched in 2018 as a cryptomining business, Crusoe has pivoted to developing AI data centers and offering AI cloud services. The company divested its crypto operations in March 2025.

Crusoe also has plans for a 1.8GW campus in Wyoming, two sites in Missouri, and natural gas-powered data centers in Alberta, Canada. It recently backed off from a project in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was recently named as a potential partner for a project in Nebraska.

In February 2026, Crusoe announced it would be deploying modular data centers at Energy Vault's technology center in Snyder, Texas. The initial deployment is expected to scale up to 25MW.

This week saw the firm announce plans for a gigawatt-scale campus in Childress, Texas.

Crusoe launched a GPU cloud service from colocation facilities in 2023. The company operates five cloud regions across the US (Houston, Virginia, Nevada) and Europe (Iceland, Norway). It has partnered with Digital Realty and Equinix in the US, atNorth in Iceland, Polar in Norway, and in Israel with Anan Group and Mega Or.

Recently, Crusoe said it has contracted 4.9GW of AI infrastructure spanning its data center projects, and capacity for Crusoe Cloud, and its total development pipeline exceeds 40GW (including contracted projects, sites under active tenant negotiation in advanced development).