{"id":241276,"date":"2026-05-07T17:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/owensboro-ky-mayor-explores-data-center-possibility\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T18:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:10:09","slug":"owensboro-ky-mayor-explores-data-center-possibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/owensboro-ky-mayor-explores-data-center-possibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Owensboro, Ky., Mayor Explores Data Center Possibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

Owensboro, Ky., Mayor Explores Data Center Possibility<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/artificial-intelligence\/owensboro-ky-mayor-explores-data-center-possibility<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-07 17:49:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.govtech.com<\/a><\/p>\n

(TNS) \u2014 Owensboro Mayor Tom Watson said he is exploring the idea of locating an AI data center in the city.<\/p>\n

Watson confirmed with the Messenger-Inquirer that he has had talks about the idea with officials from Owensboro Municipal Utilities and with U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie.<\/p>\n

Watson and other local officials said there is not a definite plan in the works, but the mayor said a site has been considered as a possible location for a data center.<\/p>\n


\u201cIt\u2019s a possibility,\u201d Watson said Monday. \u201cBut nothing is firmed up yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson said of a possible data center, \u201cIt\u2019s not a big increase in employment, but those are good-paying jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson said he hopes to know more after further consultation with Guthrie.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all just preliminary,\u201d Watson said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t put too much thought into it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

City Manager Nate Pagan said firms exploring the possibility of bringing a data center to Owensboro have made contact with local officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get contacted, OMU gets contacted and the EDC gets contacted,\u201d Pagan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople call the EDC more than us,\u201d said Pagan, adding that firms looking for locations for data centers consider factors such as proximity to large transmission lines.<\/p>\n

The city does not have a definitive data center project that it is pursuing, Pagan said, and no firm has officially brought a proposal to city officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there are a lot of people looking for sites,\u201d Pagan said.<\/p>\n

Daviess County Judge-Executive Charlie Castlen said the county has not been involved in any discussions about a data center.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody has reached out to me and my staff,\u201d Castlen said.<\/p>\n

In February, TeraWulf Inc., a firm that specializes in building data centers, bought the former Century Aluminum property in Hawesville. The firm said in a press release it would convert the site into a \u201cdigital infrastructure campus supporting high-performance computing and artificial intelligence…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Owensboro, Ky., Mayor Explores Data Center Possibility https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/artificial-intelligence\/owensboro-ky-mayor-explores-data-center-possibility Publish Date: 2026-05-07 17:49:00 Source Domain: www.govtech.com…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/erepublic.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/3c67431\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/1000x486+0+77\/resize\/1440x700!\/quality\/90\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ferepublic-brightspot.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2F86%2F0b%2Fc93ca56c4e5e87b4612ed4e9b076%2Fshutterstock-661115818.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241279,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241276\/revisions\/241279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}