New details about Columbus data center project: location, water use, Big 5 buyer

More information about the effort to build a data center in the Chattahoochee Valley was revealed at a Choose Columbus public meeting Friday.

The event series, called Percolate and Elevate, invites Columbus area residents to speak with Missy Kendrick, president and CEO of Choose Columbus, and other local officials about economic development projects.

The first event was Friday at Iron Bank Coffee Company, at 6 11th St.

The main topic of the meeting was Project Ruby, a $5.18 billion data center project. Over 20 residents packed the upstairs meeting room for the two-hour meeting, raising questions about water usage, electricity bills, job opportunities, noise pollution, environmental impact and much more.

Kendrick told the Ledger-Enquirer that she anticipated the community pushback.

“[Residents] are scared,” Kendrick said. “The development authority, city council and other people who are involved in this have tried to look at this from the public’s perspective, to try to put in place the things that would alleviate any fears. … I don’t want anybody thinking that there’s one or two people who are making an overnight decision on this. That is not the case.”

Kendrick revealed information about Project Ruby, including site location, potential developers and estimated water use. Here’s the information she shared.

Site, potential developers and water use for Project Ruby

The project site is northeast Muscogee County, bordering parts of Harris and Talbot counties. The site is 900 acres. The developer has purchased the land but is awaiting rezoning approval, Kendrick said.

Kendrick told residents that she would provide visuals of the site area at the next public meeting.

The center will be powered by Flint Energies, a not-for-profit member-owner electric cooperative based in Reynolds, Georgia.

A developer has not been announced, but Kendrick said the data center would be one of the Big 5 hyperscalers: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Meta (Facebook) or Apple.

The data center might not be used for powering only artificial intelligence technology, Kendrick said. Specific usages depend on the developer.

“Each one of [the developers] has a different percentage of how much is AI and how much is processing,” Kendrick said during the meeting.

The Development Authority of Columbus is not offering any tax incentives to potential data center developers, Kendrick said.

The data center developer will pay $30 million upfront for the center’s water and sewage infrastructure, Kendrick said. The facility is projected to consume 330,000 gallons of water daily. Columbus currently uses 35-40 million gallons of water daily, she said.

The city can process up to 90 million gallons of water per day, Kendrick said.

When is the next meeting?

Choose Columbus will host more public events for residents in the coming weeks. The next event date is set for March 3 at 2 p.m., with a location change to be announced, according to Kendrick.

More information about future meetings can be found on choosecolumbusga.com and on the Choose Columbus Georgia Facebook page.

This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 10:51 AM.