AI’s buildout just hit city hall, the grid queue, and the fiber map—and none of them moves at chip speed. Before we get to today: PJM’s large-load integration fight is way beyond any one tariff or queue reform. The operator is juggling resource adequacy, capacity-market affordability, interconnection, governance, and federal oversight. It’s also opening a temporary expedited interconnection track and advancing reliability-backstop work. Meanwhile, FERC is taking comments on reforms to PJM’s governance and stakeholder processes. This is The Data Center Daily. Today, we’re looking at the permits, pipes, power studies, and fiber commitments behind the AI land rush. Start in Fort Smith, where a city that supplies water to 30 nearby communities is deciding how much leverage it plans to use. If this story matters to you — PJM large-load integration plan — hit follow. We'll be back on it soon. Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, with Ashley Torres:
FORT SMITH -- The discussion surrounding the nation's data center boom has found its way to Fort Smith. On Tuesday, the Fort Smith Board of Directors will review rules for data center development, including possible regulations for data center water usage.
Fort Smith’s board meets Tuesday with no known data center project in or near the city—and honestly, that’s the smart time to write the rules. Staff is floating utility-capacity certifications, water reports, noise studies, and board review before somebody arrives with a very glossy 600-page deck. Fort Smith supplies water to 30 surrounding communities. So if a data center wants meters bigger than two inches—or enough smaller meters to beat that limit—the city has to approve it in writing. Good. Try being clever with plumbing somewhere else. The 2023 ordinance already permits data centers by right in industrial moderate and heavy zones. Tuesday’s discussion is about attaching actual operating conditions to that zoning permission. Zoning lets you build there. It doesn’t settle the water question. And Kevin Settle asked for this review back on July 1, before an applicant forced everybody into a deadline panic. With capacity certification, the utility has to put its name on the claim—not just the developer’s slide deck. Here's Marin Holt at MGRID:
PJM Interconnection has accepted 715 new generation projects into the first cycle of its reformed interconnection process. Together they carry 201.5 GW of nameplate capacity. PJM announced the milestone from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania on August 3, 2026. It is the first group of resources to move through the first-ready, first-served framework. No backlog remains from the prior queues, the operator said.
PJM update: 715 projects, totaling 201.5 gigawatts, are now in the first reformed queue cycle. The old backlog is cleared, and the new study clock runs one to two years. And 96 of 811 applications didn’t even make the initial screen on technical details, deposits, and site control. Good. A queue slot shouldn’t be a free call option on everybody else’s transmission system. The resource mix is the part people will try to glide past: storage leads with 314 projects, but gas leads capacity at 99.8 gigawatts. Nearly half this intake is gas nameplate, while data-center buyers keep shopping for cleaner contracted supply. So, 201.5 gigawatts entered a study process. Great milestone. It does not power a single new server rack until PJM finishes the studies and somebody builds the wires, plants, and substations. The Nevada Independent writes:
Lyon County commissioners voted 3-1 Thursday to approve a zoning change needed to build the massive Monarch Data Center near Yerington, clearing a hurdle for a data center development even as many other jurisdictions in the state look to pause or re-assess data center buildout.
Lyon County voted 3-1 for the zoning change, and a 1,000-megawatt campus on 505 acres near Yerington now has a path forward. It also comes with a 500-megawatt gas backup plant—because apparently half a gigawatt of fossil generation is now an accessory building. Copia still needs final design approval, separate state permits, and construction clearance. The zoning change is approved, but operating capacity is still a long way off. Fort Smith was the water fight. Nevada’s got the other half of the bill: water disputes are still alive here, along with gas-plant siting and NV Energy service for a full gigawatt. Lyon County approved a zone change. The expensive parts are still waiting in line. Lyon went the opposite direction from the moratoriums in Reno, Nye County, and Humboldt County. That 3-1 vote is a meaningful siting win for Copia, but it’s nowhere near an in-service date, no matter how handsome the conceptual renderings may be. Here's Fierce Network:
In April, Bill Long, Zayo’s chief product and strategy officer, told Fierce that Zayo was building 8,000 more route miles of fiber, and the company had signed an anchor tenant for the build in a “monster deal.” Today, Zayo confirmed that the anchor tenant is Nvidia.
Nvidia is Zayo’s “monster” anchor: 16 long-haul routes, six greenfield and 10 overbuilds, with completion rolling out through 2030. A real customer is backing this build. And Nvidia’s leasing eight additional Zayo routes that already had capacity. The chip company is leasing fiber and helping decide where America’s next backbone gets built. Zayo says it mapped where power was available before picking these AI corridors. Those PJM queue numbers make that planning detail matter: fiber is following expected compute geography, years before every generator is energized. Lumen’s CFO says fresh long-haul routes don’t pencil out. Zayo has Nvidia underwriting 16 of them. Have feedback, a story idea, or a correction? Email us at datacenterdaily at lantern podcasts dot com. Your notes help us make The Data Center Daily more useful every day.
We’ll be watching PJM’s accepted Cycle 1 projects move into studies expected to run one to two years. We’ll also watch Copia Power return to Lyon County with a final Monarch Data Center design, and Zayo’s Nvidia-backed long-haul routes, with the first expected as early as 2027 and the full set by 2030.
Links to every story are in the show notes if you want to dig into any of these. That’s The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.