Fans that are part of a cooling system are seen on the roof of a data center April 27, 2026, in Hillsboro, Oregon. | Jenny Kane, AP
Published on June 1, 2026 at 3:27 pm
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Nassau County is scheduling a series of workshops to evaluate the potential effects of data centers on the county.
The first of seven workshops was scheduled Monday and the last on June 30. They are the latest efforts by county officials to learn more about the controversial AI data centers and their potential effect on residents and communities.
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The workshops come after a company called NextNRG announced in September that it had secured a long-term lease option on 1,600 acres in Nassau County. NextNRG calls itself “a pioneer in AI-driven energy innovation transforming how energy is produced, managed, and delivered.”
The information heard at workshops will become part of the county’s evaluation of data centers as it heads toward a possible moratorium of any applications.
Among the issues are environmental effects, water consumption, electrical demand and generation, land use compatibility, infrastructure capacity, economic considerations and the legal parameters of Florida law, the county said in an announcement Monday on Facebook.
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NextNRG issued a news release Sept. 22 saying it was working on plans for a potential deployment of a “200 MW (200 Megawatts, equal to 200 million watts) smart microgrid” on 1,200 acres of the property. The remaining 400 acres would be used for hyperscale data center development, with what it called “ample land in a location with power, water, and fiber already in place.”
Hyperscalers are large-scale cloud computing providers that operate massive data centers to support global digital services, according to the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability at Duke University.
The rapid expansion of these data centers is driven by increasing demand for computing, artificial intelligence, big data analytics and digital transformation across industry and government, the institute states. But the data centers “consume large amounts of energy and water to do so, posing sustainability challenges,” it states.
NextNRG, headquartered in Miami Beach, did not specify where the facility would be, other than near Jacksonville International Airport, “making it ideal for future hyperscale and AI-driven data center growth.”
The company’s news release also stated that NextNRG has potential access to 6,000 more acres in Nassau County to provide for the power, water and fiber optics it needs.
Nassau County officials say they have yet to receive details about the information NextNRG announced. A statement a month ago stated that neither the County Commission nor staff had knowledge beyond the news release, reported the Jacksonville Daily Record, a Jacksonville Today news partner.
The county said it tried to reach NextNRG without success.
County officials say they have been hearing from residents concerned about the data center, so it directed the county attorney to draft a 12-month moratorium on the development of data centers within unincorporated Nassau County.
If adopted, the temporary moratorium would pause the processing of any new data center applications and give staff time to “carefully evaluate the scale, intensity, and potential impacts of such uses.” This includes consideration of land use compatibility, infrastructure demands and long-term community priorities, the county stated.
“At this time, there are no active or pending applications for data center development in unincorporated Nassau County,” the county posted on Facebook. “However this is a proactive approach to ensure appropriate standards are in place moving forward.”
The proposed moratorium had its first public hearing on May 11. The next public hearing is set for 5 p.m. next Monday in commision chambers in Yulee.
During the discussion May 11, county staff highlighted Senate Bill 484, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law May 7, effective in July.
The law ensures that local governments “maintain the authority to reject data center development in their communities,” the governor said in a news release. The law also prevents data center electricity costs from being passed onto residents and protects Florida’s water resources from data center consumption.
The workshops announced Monday will include experts in commercial real estate, engineering, conservation, economic development and planning. The work will culminate in a report to the County Commission for policy consideration.
The remaining worshops are:
- 5 p.m. Tuesday at West Nassau High School in Callahan
- 9 a.m. Monday in the County Commission chambers
- 5 p.m. June 9 at West Nassau High School
- 9 a.m. June 18 in the County Commission chambers
- 5 p.m. June 29 in the County Commission chambers
- 5 p.m. June 30 in the County Commission chambers
More information and the full workshop schedule are posted here.
The public is invited to provide comments at nassaufl.co/DataCenters-FactFinding.
