Massive 1,800-Acre Data Center Campus Proposed Near Greensboro, North Carolina
January 9, 2026 A major proposal for a sprawling data center campus in North Carolina highlights the intense competition for land and power as the industry expands to meet surging demand from artificial intelligence and cloud computing. The scale of the project underscores the strategic shift towards developing large-scale, dedicated campuses in regions with available land and energy infrastructure. The Stokes County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to meet next week to consider a zoning ordinance amendment that would permit data centers under a heavy manufacturing classification. Concurrently, the board will review a specific rezoning request for an 1,800-acre site along US 311 and Tuttle Road in Walnut Cove, a town located approximately 32 miles northwest of Greensboro. The project, known as “Project Delta,” is being developed on land owned by local developer David Couch, CEO of Blue Ridge Companies, in partnership with real estate firm Engineered Land Solutions. The proposed campus, situated near Duke Energy's Belews Creek power plant, is planned to have a total capacity of “several hundred megawatts.” Project plans indicate it will be served by a new dedicated electrical substation and will utilize a closed-loop cooling system. The development may also include on-site power generation, though specific details have not been disclosed. This follows a previous rejection by county officials of a proposal to build a Duke Energy solar farm on the same land. The project faces local opposition. The Stokes County planning board voted against recommending the plan in early December. Furthermore, a petition organized by Clean Water for North Carolina, which calls the project a “threat to local history and heritage,” has garnered over 2,600 signatures. The final decision now rests with the county commissioners. If approved, Project Delta would become one of the largest single-campus data center developments in the Southeastern United States, significantly boosting North Carolina's profile as a key data center hub. It reflects a broader industry trend of seeking large, contiguous parcels of land to build future-proof infrastructure capable of supporting next-generation high-density computing workloads. Source: datacenterdynamics
