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- The Mississippi Public Service Commission ruled that companies can generate power for their own use without being regulated as a public utility.
- This ruling allows Gabriel Prado and his company, PraCon Global, to potentially build data centers with their own on-site power generation.
- Prado’s plan involves developing AI industrial campuses in areas of Mississippi that currently lack sufficient power grid infrastructure.
- Unlike other data centers relying on large utilities, Prado’s projects aim to prevent energy cost increases for Mississippi ratepayers.
The Mississippi Public Service Commission has made a ruling that paves the way for Gabriel Prado and his company PraCon Global investment Group to move forward with plans to potentially build a data center in the Jackson area.
The Public Service Commission’s ruling could transform how energy usage is delivered, particularly for the data center economy in Mississippi and next generation AI industrial development, in theory protecting consumers from long-term energy cost increases.
“PraCon Global investment Group welcomes the decision of the Mississippi Public Service Commission that leaves intact the plain language of Mississippi law and declines to reinterpret or narrow the long-standing statutory exemption that allows companies to construct, own, and operate electric generationfacilities for their own private commercial use without regulation as a public utility,” Prado said. “Asstated in its Request, PRADO AI’s proposed power generation facilities will serve its planned AI data center and AI semiconductor manufacturing campus.
“By declining to issue a declaratory opinion, the commission did not alter, limit or reinterpret the statutory exemption contained in Mississippi Code §77-3-3(d). PRADO AI celebrates that the PSC and Mississippi law continues to operate exactly as written by the Mississippi Legislature, allowing private companies to generate electricity for their own facilities without being classified as a public utility.”
The ruling is also a step for Prado and his company, which plans to jump into the fray to compete in the data center explosion as he intends to add large scale AI industrial infrastructure projects, including “AI semiconductor facilities” and data centers across Mississippi.
Large utilities’ role in Mississippi data center economy
As Mississippi gets deeper and deeper into a data center economy that is going to require copious amounts of energy over the next decade, Entergy Mississippi pushed all its chips in the middle of the table.
Entergy Mississippi made a five-year investment in 2025 into what it called reliable energy to keep rates lower. Those investments, Entergy has said, will be paid for by companies such as Amazon.
Meanwhile, states throughout the nation are pushing back on the data center economy, in part because of fears of rising energy costs.
In May, Maine lawmakers passed the first U.S. statewide moratorium on new, large data centers to study impacts on energy rates and environmental resources.
Last week in Jackson, dozens of Jackson residents — some with signs that read “No Data Centers,” “Can’t Drink Data” and “Jackson is our City” packed shoulder-to-shoulder into the small conference room inside the Warren Hood Building on Wednesday, May 27.
It all goes back to available energy
The one thing that data center developers AWS, Compass Data in Meridian and AVAIO Digital in Brandon have talked about is the ability of the state’s energy companies to deliver at a breakneck speed. In the case of Compass, it has been Mississippi Power, but for AWS, at both Madison campuses and the Warren County campus and then AVAIO, it has been Entergy.
Mark McComiskey, AVAIO Digital CEO2, made that case clear in August, when talking about why his company chose Mississippi, in general and Brandon, specifically.
“The Greater Jackson area is poised to become a new hub for cloud computing and AI development, and we are delighted to partner with the city of Brandon to make a significant investment in expanding the region’s digital and energy infrastructure,” McComiskey said.
Interstate 20 across Mississippi may come to be known as the Data Center Corridor because of availble energy built by Entergy.
Prado’s plan for economic development
Prado, meanwhile, wants to have energy production on site, unlike what Entergy and Southern Company do with grids across the state. Prado’s plan, he said, also would not be like what Elon Musk’s XAI did with turbines that created severe noise pollution in North Mississippi.
Prado said he has identified multiple sites in Mississippi for development of advanced AI industrial campuses, which would have AI semiconductor fabrication facilities and data center campuses.
The projects are structured, he said, so that electricity is not sold or resold, but instead provided as an “incidental component or real estate leasing arrangements”, which Prado said is consistent with Mississippi law.
If he is able to do that, Prado wants to take the data center economy to places that currently don’t have sufficiently built-out grids from Entergy or Southern Company, such as places in the Mississippi Delta or even Southwest Mississippi.
Prado is relying on language in Mississippi Code 77-3-3(d), which says that an entity is not a public utility and will not be treated as such if “it provides electricity to itself or to tenants as an incident of tenancy.”
The filing to the PSC states any of Prado’s power generation facilities will operate off-grid, serving only on-site electrical demand, with no electricity being sold to the public or third parties.
“By self-generating energy on site, we ensure that 100% of the cost of powering AI semiconductor and AI cloud computing operations is borne by the company and is not passed on to Mississippi rate payers over time,” Prado said.
How is the power generated?
Samsung is doing something similar in Texas with a $17 billion project.
However, Prado has not fully explained the details of his project and how it will work.
“We are building long-term, environmentally responsible AI industrial infrastructure, not short-term fixes,” Prado said. “This is about doing it right from day one, with reliability, sustainability and community impact in mind.”
Who is Gabriel Prado?
To this point, Prado, who lives in Jackson, has only ventured into commercial real estate and development.
In December 2024, Prado helped bring to life Topgolf, as the sports entertainment venue opened in Ridgeland with much fanfare as part of the Prado Vista development just off of I-55.
And while Topgolf is the drawing card for the development northeast of the Renaissance at Colony Park, the project has promise of more with shopping and an array of other options..
One of the outgrowths from Topgolf being the anchor of the 77-acre mixed-use development was to include office, retail and restaurant space, and the potential of homes for sale, among other things.
This new data center economy venture would seem to take the Belhaven University graduate to a different level of commitment in the business world of Mississippi.
This is a developing story.
Charlie Drape contributed to this story.
Ross Reily is a writer for the Clarion Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at rreily@gannett.com or 601-573-2952. You can follow him on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter @GreenOkra1.
