Florida has more than 150 tracked data center projects in the pipeline. Roughly 110 existing facilities are already operating statewide.
Nineteen jurisdictions have already paused or banned new development, and at least five major proposals have been withdrawn, denied or canceled since February.
Last updated August 24, 2026.
This page tracks what we've found live, under construction, proposed, blocked, and what general-purpose infrastructure is already carrying AI workloads today. New projects, ordinances and rulings are landing fast enough that this list is a snapshot, not a final word, and we'll update it as things change.
AI Data Centers Now
Miami-Dade's newest data center projects include facilities designed or marketed specifically for AI workloads, alongside smaller general-purpose facilities that could support AI infrastructure without being purpose-built for it.
Miami-Dade already has data centers under construction. Unlike the mega-proposals drawing fights elsewhere in the state, experts say these are notably small.
Three projects account for the county's newest wave: Metrobloks MIA-A1 near the Everglades, Iron Mountain's MIA-1 in Westview, and ReadySetFundGrow's "Fishbowl," a one-story micro-data center under development in Homestead.
Combined, the three would use between 0.05% and 0.2% of Miami's total drinkable water supply, according to an analysis by Margaret Cook, vice president of water and community resilience at the Houston Advanced Research Center.
"If you weren't going to be worried about three new apartment buildings or, let's say, 30 new office buildings, then small data centers probably wouldn't be a worry," Cook said.
That size distinction matters legally too. All three of Miami-Dade's imminent projects fall below the size threshold that triggers Florida's new SB 484 ratepayer and water protections, meaning the state's newest data center law doesn't apply to any of them.
Iron Mountain's MIA-1, in the unincorporated Westview community, is a 150,000-square-foot, AI-ready facility on a 3.4-acre former storage site. It's phasing up to 16 megawatts of IT load, and construction began quietly in February 2025.
Under county code, the project was classified as a "telecommunications hub" rather than a "data center." That made it permitted by right in industrial zoning, with no rezoning and no public hearing required.
Notices went out only within 500 feet of the site. That radius covered industrial neighbors, but not the homes and apartments along Northwest 27th Avenue.
Residents at Westview's Homeowners Association meetings have raised concerns about noise, water use and whether the promised roughly 30 jobs will reach the community. Miami-Dade currently hosts 27 of Florida's roughly 110 tracked data centers.
Harvard Kennedy School senior research associate Rachel Mural said individual small facilities like these are unlikely to strain the grid much on their own, but warned that a cluster of them could still cause problems.
"Because of how data centers use power, they might be increasing or decreasing their usage over really, really short time frames, like milliseconds," Mural said. "That really does introduce challenges for grid operators when you have all these data centers doing this at the same time."
AI Data Centers Planned
Metrobloks MIA-A1: Approved, under construction. (Unincorporated Miami-Dade, near Sweetwater.) A 112,900-square-foot facility targeting a Q4 2026 opening, with up to 150kW rack densities and 16.8 megawatts of stated critical IT capacity. MAIN covered the project's progress in detail this month.
The Fort Meade Data Center Campus: Approved, facing legal challenge. On more than 1,300 acres of former phosphate mining land in Polk County, this project was approved unanimously by city commissioners on April 15, 2026. Forty of the 41 public commenters spoke against it.
Developer Stonebridge has secured a 20-year agreement, rezoning, and a $150 million, 10-year tax break, targeting a $2.6 billion investment and up to 4.4 million square feet by 2028. The project still needs a water-use permit. The Southwest Florida Water Management District told the city, the day of the vote, that its existing permit can't supply the project.
Florida's Commerce Secretary called the developer's water estimate "woefully underestimated" and the project "fundamentally flawed." Residents filed two lawsuits on May 14 seeking to void the approval, and a recall effort now targets three commissioners.
Atlas Compute's AI Data Center Campus: Proposed, no application filed. Proposed by a Miami-based developer at Fort Pierce's Midway Industrial Park, this is designed as closed-loop, water-free cooling infrastructure. It's built with Penguin Solutions specifically for Nvidia GPU workloads, targeting 240 megawatts initially and up to 1 gigawatt at full build-out. No formal application had been filed as of early 2026, with a 2027 operational target.
NextNRG's Nassau County campus: Early planning. Near Jacksonville International Airport, this pairs a 1,600-acre site with an unusual on-site 200-megawatt smart microgrid, phased from 50-megawatt modules, with expansion potential across 6,000 nearby acres.
A DeSoto County rezoning: Pending, unaffected by moratorium. Roughly 800 acres, this remains pending in the pipeline even after the county adopted a one-year moratorium on new applications in June.
FPL's Tesoro Groves PUD: Approved, legal challenge dismissed. A 5,722-acre rezoning in Martin County's Indiantown, this was approved unanimously on April 30, 2026. FPL agreed to cap development at roughly 2 million square feet. A resident lawsuit challenging the approval was dismissed with prejudice on July 2.
Projects Residents Have Stopped
At least five proposals have been withdrawn, denied or canceled since February.
Sentinel Grove Technology Park (Project Jarvis): Withdrawn, Feb. 26, 2026. This was a proposed $13.5 billion, 15-million-square-foot campus on 1,218 acres of former citrus grove land near Fort Pierce. Its developers withdrew it after the county's planning commission voted against recommending it.
Okeechobee's Okee-One Data Campus: Canceled, April 2026. Tied to an Indian River State College workforce-training partnership, this was canceled after the state clawed back a $1.5 million grant, citing misrepresentations about the project's energy and water needs.
Martin County's Silver Fox: Withdrawn. A 606-acre, 2-million-square-foot proposal in Indiantown, this was withdrawn after sustained community opposition.
Citrus County's Deltona Corp proposal: Withdrawn, June 23, 2026. Covering roughly 1,400 acres, this was withdrawn one day after commissioners refused to delay the vote past the election. The withdrawal cost it the project's prior moratorium exemption.
Palm Beach County's Project Tango: Denied, July 15, 2026. A hyperscale campus proposed on 202 acres near Loxahatchee, this was denied 5-1 by county commissioners after three delays and a 12-hour hearing. The denial was issued without prejudice, and the site retains prior approval for warehouse and data center use.
The Statewide Moratorium Wave
Nineteen Florida jurisdictions have now paused or banned data center development, sixteen temporary and three permanent.
Every pause has an expiration date. When one runs out, the jurisdiction returns to having no local data center rules at all unless commissioners pass something new first.
Hillsborough County directed staff to draft its own moratorium on August 5, 2026. Then it learned that SB 180, a post-hurricane recovery statute, bars new development moratoriums in storm-affected counties until October 1, 2027. That leaves the county unable to act despite commissioner support.
The New State Law
Governor Ron DeSantis signed SB 484 into law on May 7, 2026, effective July 1. The law bars utilities from shifting data center infrastructure costs onto residential ratepayers and preserves local zoning authority. It also allows state agencies to sign non-disclosure agreements with developers, which can shield project details from the public for up to a year.
Three related bills, including a proposed statewide transparency and disclosure requirement, died in the legislature without passing.
DeSantis reportedly pushed for a stricter version of the bill. Florida Politics has reported the White House supported the amendments that weakened it before signing.
FPL president Scott Bores publicly praised the ratepayer protection that did survive, calling it "another great example of Florida getting things right." He also noted that more large-scale power users like data centers boosts utility profits, which he suggested could eventually help lower rates broadly.
The law also now requires a public hearing from the relevant water management district before any qualifying large-scale data center can get a water use permit, along with a required water conservation plan.
Facilities using more than 100,000 gallons a day must use reclaimed water instead of fresh drinking water. The exception is if doing so isn't "environmentally, economically, and technically feasible," a standard the law doesn't further define.
Transparency remains a recurring complaint independent of the law. Christine Reichert, a senior attorney with Earthjustice who has represented residents fighting hyperscale projects statewide, said developers frequently withhold basic details about cooling systems and power requirements.
In the case of Project Tango, she said, developers initially sought permission for a "server farm" before changing the application to an AI-ready data center. She argues that kind of shift can cut communities out of the chance to weigh in at all.
The state's data center debate has also become a genuine gubernatorial flashpoint. DeSantis has taken a more cautious stance. Byron Donalds has said Florida should compete for data center investment with stronger environmental guardrails. Fellow Republican candidate Paul Renner, a former House Speaker, has pledged to call a special session specifically to halt hyperscale data center approvals if elected.
Infrastructure Not Specific to AI, But Supplying It
Florida's broader colocation market predates the AI boom and already carries a meaningful share of AI workloads without being purpose-built for it.
Equinix operates MI1 in downtown Miami. Flexential's Fort Lauderdale data center actively markets high-density colocation for AI, ML and GPU deployments today.
Volico Data Centers runs facilities in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach. 365 Data Centers and Cogent Communications operate Fort Lauderdale-area and Boca Raton sites respectively.
Further north, EdgeConneX runs facilities in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, and Flexential also operates two Tampa locations.
The state's data center footprint by market, per DataCenterMap's tracked facility count, breaks down as follows. This reflects general-purpose colocation and connectivity sites, not exclusively AI-built infrastructure.
Florida Data Center Footprint by Market
Tampa and Miami together account for roughly half of Florida's tracked data center footprint. Miami's count of 27 lines up closely with independent reporting on Miami-Dade's own facility total.
The statewide figure of around 110 to 111 tracked centers matches separate county-level reporting cited elsewhere on this page. That total describes existing operational facilities generally, distinct from the pipeline of AI-specific projects proposed, approved, blocked or under construction detailed above.
Frequently Asked Questions About Florida's Data Centers
Are there any AI data centers in Florida?
Yes, several. Miami-Dade already has three projects designed or marketed for AI workloads: Metrobloks MIA-A1, Iron Mountain's MIA-1 in Westview, and ReadySetFundGrow's "Fishbowl" in Homestead. None had fully opened as of this writing, though Iron Mountain's facility is the furthest along. Beyond Miami-Dade, larger AI-specific proposals are moving through approval or construction in Polk, Martin and St. Lucie counties.
Is there a data center in Miami?
Yes. Miami-Dade hosts roughly 27 of Florida's approximately 110 tracked data centers, more than any other Florida market except Tampa. That count spans both general-purpose colocation facilities, like Equinix's MI1 in downtown Miami, and the newer AI-specific projects listed above.
What data centers are in Fort Lauderdale?
Fort Lauderdale has four tracked data center facilities, including Flexential's high-density colocation site, which actively markets AI, ML and GPU support today, and Volico Data Centers' nearby operations in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach. None of Fort Lauderdale's current facilities are purpose-built AI data centers in the way Metrobloks or Iron Mountain's Miami-Dade projects are.
What data centers are in Central Florida?
Central Florida's activity centers on Orlando, with 12 tracked facilities including HostDime's existing Orlando data center and a new 100,000-square-foot Tier IV facility HostDime is building in Maitland. Polk County, also part of Central Florida, is home to two of the state's largest and most contested AI data center proposals: the Fort Meade Data Center Campus and Cielo Digital Infrastructure's planned 300-megawatt campus.
How many data centers does Florida have in total?
Roughly 110 to 111 existing, tracked data center facilities operate statewide, concentrated mainly in Tampa, Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville. That's separate from the more than 150 tracked projects in the AI-specific development pipeline, which includes proposals still awaiting approval, projects already under construction, and proposals that have since been withdrawn, denied or blocked by moratorium.
Which Florida counties have banned or paused data centers?
Nineteen jurisdictions have paused or banned data center development as of this writing. Jackson, Wakulla and Walton counties have adopted permanent, indefinite bans. The other sixteen are temporary pauses with set expiration dates, most running through mid-to-late 2027, covering counties including Nassau, Sarasota, Leon, Clay, Flagler and Santa Rosa, along with the cities of Lakeland, Zephyrhills and North Port.
Why don't Florida's AI-specific data center laws apply to Miami-Dade's projects?
Florida's SB 484, signed in May 2026, sets ratepayer and water protections that apply above a certain size threshold. All three of Miami-Dade's current AI data center projects, Metrobloks, Iron Mountain and Fishbowl, are small enough that none of them trigger those protections. Iron Mountain's facility, for example, tops out at 16 megawatts, well under the relevant threshold.
What This Means for Miami
The most locally significant story on this page isn't a distant county fight. It's happening in Miami-Dade's own backyard.
Three projects there are genuinely smaller than the mega-proposals drawing organized opposition and moratoriums elsewhere in the state. They're small enough that Florida's newest data center law doesn't even apply to any of them.
That size difference is real, but it hasn't resolved the transparency concerns entirely. Iron Mountain's Westview project went from groundbreaking to nearly complete construction without most nearby residents knowing. It used a zoning classification built for ordinary telecom infrastructure, not a facility this scale.
Whether that permitting gap gets addressed before the next project breaks ground, in Miami-Dade or elsewhere in the state, is likely to be one of the more consequential local policy questions of the next year.
This page will be updated as new projects, ordinances and legal challenges develop. Contact our news desk with any updates.