What Oklahoma Gets From a $1 Billion Data Center

Power

Project Clydesdale is the largest data center under construction in the Tulsa area, and unlike most projects on this beat, its numbers are on the public record. As of 2 August 2026 the campus is a $1 billion, roughly 506-acre build whose peak water draw the City of Tulsa put at about 5 to 6 million gallons, against a system that treats about 105 million gallons a day and can treat 210 million. The land it sits on is currently assessed at under $1,000.

Last updated 2 August 2026

Does this apply to you?

If you pay a Public Service Company of Oklahoma bill or live in the Owasso and north Tulsa County area, these are your figures. Every number below comes from Tulsa County records, the developer's own disclosures, or Oklahoma statute, and each is dated where it moves.

If you live anywhere else, treat this as a worked example rather than a national average. Data center water use, tax treatment and ratepayer rules are set utility by utility and county by county. Oklahoma's arrangement looks nothing like Georgia's or PJM's.

How much water does the data center actually use?

Less than the spare capacity Tulsa already built. At a community meeting on 13 October 2025, Public Works Director Terry Ball said the city treats roughly 105 million gallons of water per day against a capacity of 210 million. Beale Infrastructure's development director, Lauren Harvey, said the company worked with the city to map peak usage, which the city put at about 5 or 6 million gallons.

DERIVED Tulsa's unused daily treatment capacity is about 105 million gallons: 210 million minus 105 million. If the project figure is a daily peak, it is roughly five percent of that headroom, or about 5.5 divided by 105. The source does not state a time base for the 5 to 6 million gallon figure, so that conditional matters and is not resolved here.

Beale states water will be recycled and processed several times before discharge, that the company is funding about three miles of new 12-inch water lines in the Washington County Rural Water District No. 3 system, and that wastewater runs to the City of Tulsa under an industrial discharge permit. Those are the developer's commitments, not audited performance.

What does the county get in return?

A tax base where there was almost none. Tulsa World reported that the property on which the campus is being built carries an assessed value of less than $1,000. County Commissioner Stan Sallee said at the groundbreaking that the project will generate about $2 million a year for Tulsa County, Owasso Public Schools and others once operational. CLAIM

That figure reconciles against its components. The agreement carries a payment in lieu of taxes indexed to the consumer price index plus a $500,000 annual community investment payment earmarked for roads. Beale separately commits $12.5 million to widen the road along 86th Street and projects more than $100 million to Owasso Public Schools over 25 years across all four planned phases.

One figure did not survive checking. Tulsa World's reporting put the combined annual payments at about $6.65 million, but the components it lists, an indexed payment plus $500,000 for roads, do not multiply out to that total for the first phase. Sallee's $2 million does. The larger number is left out here rather than carried unreconciled.

How many jobs is a $1 billion campus worth?

Fewer than the capital suggests, and the developer says so. Beale's project page lists more than 50 full-time operational positions for the initial phase, with salaries above a Tulsa-area median wage of roughly $65,000, plus 400 to 800 construction jobs annually across an approximately seven-year buildout.

Two of the company's own numbers have moved since launch. Its October 2025 announcement described up to 100 permanent technical roles over a five-year buildout of the initial phase. The current page describes more than 50 roles over about seven years. On headcount the two are compatible, since a number between 50 and 100 satisfies both. On schedule they are not: the initial phase buildout lengthened by roughly two years. Neither figure has been independently audited.

This is the honest weak point of the economic case everywhere, not just here. Twila True, whose firm partners with tribal energy developer Colusa Indian Energy, has put it plainly in trade press: these facilities create few jobs, and the argument for them rests on the capital they generate rather than the payroll.

Who pays for the power?

Under Oklahoma law as of 1 July 2026, the large user does. The Data Center Consumer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026, House Bill 2992, is codified at 17 O.S. sections 900 through 906 and administered by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. It defines a large load customer as a new data center, cryptocurrency operation or artificial intelligence computing facility contracting for 75 megawatts or more, and requires electric suppliers to maintain separate terms, conditions and tariffs for that class on cost causation principles.

The statute also carries a minimum ten-year service term and a notice requirement: developers must inform the Corporation Commission, county commissioners and adjoining landowners within 60 days of acquiring the land. The bill passed both chambers unanimously and was signed by Governor Kevin Stitt. Public Service Company of Oklahoma has filed a large load tariff with the Commission, which must approve it.

For this campus specifically, Beale states it is funding a new on-site substation. Whether the tariff as approved delivers what the statute promises is the thing to watch, and it is not settled yet.

Why the tribal question is about ownership, not land

The campus sits next to the Cherokee Industrial Park, inside the Cherokee Nation Reservation, and is a county-permitted project. That is the structural fact most coverage misses. McGirt reaffirmed reservation boundaries as a matter of criminal jurisdiction, and Oklahoma courts have held it does not convert private fee land inside those boundaries into tribal jurisdiction. So the effects land on the reservation while the payments land with the county.

Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. described the constraint himself when he signed Executive Order 2026-02-CTH on 24 February 2026, creating a task force on data center impacts: the Cherokee Nation alone cannot shape data center development within its reservation. That report was due to him by 30 June 2026 and has not surfaced publicly as of this writing.

Where tribes do control the ground, the economics change. The Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines argued in an October 2025 commentary that projects off tribal land can face three to 10 years of permitting delay while tribal projects can move faster, though it conditions that on sovereign permitting authority and federal cooperation, and cites a 2023 University of Wisconsin finding that tribal energy projects can face up to 49 federal approval steps. Speed is not automatic. It is a function of who runs the process.

Colusa Indian Energy is the clearest working answer. A Section 17 corporation owned by the Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians, it has run its own cogeneration plant and microgrid since 2005, has opened a Tulsa-area office, and sells developers bundled permitting, interconnection and power. That is a tribe selling capability rather than leasing dirt, and it is in talks with the Caddo Nation.

Not every nation wants the trade. The Seminole Nation council voted 24 to nothing on 7 March 2026 for a moratorium on data center development, among the first tribal governments to do so, after a developer approached it with a nondisclosure agreement. The Muscogee Nation council rejected legislation NCA 25-077 in November 2025 covering land the Nation had purchased in 2021. Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Norman have all paused development too. Sovereignty here is being used in both directions, which is what sovereignty is for.

What is not known

The end user. Project Clydesdale's operator has never been named publicly and is described only as a major data center operator working through an affiliate. Without that, nobody can check whose workloads the water and power serve.

The time base on the water figure. The 5 to 6 million gallon number is not stated as daily in the source, and the comparison above depends on it.

The Cherokee task force report, due 30 June 2026. The PSO large load tariff, still pending Commission approval. And whether the ratepayer statute, which regulates suppliers under Commission jurisdiction, reaches a facility served by a tribally owned utility. That last question has an obvious answer only to people who have not read the statute.

Sources

1. Beale Infrastructure, Tulsa County, OK project page, modified 25 June 2026. Acreage, phase capital, jobs, water lines, substation, roadway payment.
2. Phillip Jackson, "Developers break ground on $1B data center near Tulsa," Tulsa Flyer, 30 October 2025. Water figures, Terry Ball and Lauren Harvey statements, Sallee tax figure.
3. Beale Infrastructure, groundbreaking announcement, 31 October 2025. Original jobs and buildout figures.
4. Tulsa World, "Project Clydesdale data center takes steps toward construction in Tulsa County," 30 September 2025. Assessed value, PILOT structure, county vote.
5. Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Data Center Customer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026, 17 O.S. sections 900 through 906.
6. Oklahoma House of Representatives, HB 2992 passage release, 6 May 2026. Threshold definition and notice requirement.
7. Cherokee Nation, Executive Order 2026-02-CTH, 24 February 2026. Task force composition and 30 June 2026 reporting deadline.
8. Brunson, Previdi, Luarkie and Bazilian, "The Future of AI Runs Through Indian Country," Payne Institute Commentary, 1 October 2025. Permitting figures. Marked by its publisher as the authors' own views.
9. Colusa Indian Energy, company site, and U.S. Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy, Tribal Energy Snapshot, 4 November 2024. Microgrid history and corporate structure.
10. Native News Online, Seminole Nation moratorium, March 2026, and Mvskoke Media, NCA 25-077 coverage, October 2025.

Derivations

Spare daily treatment capacity: 210 million gallons per day minus 105 million gallons per day equals 105 million gallons per day. Share of headroom, conditional on the project figure being daily: 5.5 million divided by 105 million equals about five percent. No other figure in this article is calculated.

Corrections policy

AI Race Facts corrects visibly. Errors are fixed here with a dated note, never silently. The Tulsa World combined-payments figure discussed above was excluded rather than repeated, and that exclusion is stated in the body so readers can check the arithmetic themselves.

Last updated 2 August 2026