# High-Intensity Digital Infrastructure Use (HIDIU) **HIDIU** (also "HIDI," and paired in later drafts with "High-Impact Utility-Intensive Industrial Use") is the land-use category Pulaski County drafted in 2026 to bring data centers, AI-computing campuses, and cryptocurrency-mining operations under county land-use regulation as **heavy industrial uses**. It is the organizing concept of the county's data-center moratorium and regulatory-framework drafts. The category is defined by objective infrastructure thresholds — electrical load, water demand, computing area, on-site generation — rather than by industry name, a design choice aimed at surviving the [[Arkansas Data Centers Act of 2023 (Act 851) and 2024 Amendments|Act 851]] anti-discrimination limit. ## How it appears in the corpus HIDIU is a **drafting-stage** concept: it exists in the unsigned 26-I-series drafts produced in the #26-439 record set, not (yet) in adopted county law. Its clearest statement is the HIDIU findings resolution, which classifies such uses as *"heavy industrial uses"* whose regulation is *"rationally related to legitimate governmental interests"* ([[Draft Data-Center Regulatory Framework — HIDIU, CUP, and Related Resolutions]], `26-I-HIDIU (2).docx`). The Clerk-filed May 26 agenda packet (2026-07-09) carries the as-introduced, numbered version of the same framework as ordinance **26-I-34**, which likewise classifies HIDIUs as *"Heavy Industrial Uses"* permitted *"only subject to Conditional Use Permit approval"* ([[Quorum Court Agenda Records — May 12 and May 26 2026 (Clerk's Filed Packet)]]). **The threshold definitions vary across drafts** — a sign the category was still being negotiated: | Draft | Threshold for a covered facility | |---|---| | 26-I-CUP; 26-I-HIDIU resolution | ≥ 10 MW continuous load (or ≥ 20 MW campus, ≥ 100,000 sq ft, ≥ 100,000 gpd, ≥ 3 MW on-site gen) | | 26-I- temporary Moratorium | ≥ 10 MW continuous load **or** > 100,000 gpd water | | 26-I-52 (Curry) | ≥ 5 MW **and** ≥ 90% load factor **and** > 100 kV **and** ≥ 100,000 gpd (all required) | | 26-I-45 / 45A | ≥ 5 MW **or** ≥ 100,000 gpd (HIDI); plus a separate "High-Impact Utility-Intensive Industrial Use" ≥ 5 MW test | | 26-I-Advance Notice | ≥ 10 MW projected within 24 months **or** ≥ 70% load factor | Each definition traces to its draft text; the wiki records the spread, not a single settled figure. ## Stakeholders - **[[Pulaski County Quorum Court]]** — the drafting body; sponsors include [[Rebekah L. Davis]], [[Tina Ward]], [[Julie Blackwood]], [[Dianne Curry]], and [[Patricia Young-Baker]]. - **[[Entergy Arkansas]]** and other utilities — named in the drafts as the providers whose infrastructure and cost allocation the HIDIU review would scrutinize. - **[[AVAIO Digital Partners|AVAIO Project Leo]]** and **[[Willowbend Capital, LLC]] / Project Boar** — the large projects the category would reach (subject to the drafts' executed-utility-contract exemptions). ## Timeline - **2026-05 / 06** — the HIDIU/HIDI category is drafted across the 26-I moratorium and framework measures (this production). - **2026-05-28** — the County Judge's executive order uses the antecedent phrase *"High Intensity Digital Infrastructure"* ([[2026-05 County Judge Executive Order Pauses Data-Center Planning Applications]]). - **2026-07-14** — the postponed moratorium vote (per [[2026-06 Quorum Court Postpones the Refiled Data-Center Moratorium]]) at which a HIDIU-based measure is expected to be taken up. ## Notes The category deliberately classifies HIDIUs as **heavy industrial** to anchor county authority in traditional zoning/land-use power while disclaiming any regulation of utility rates (reserved to the [[Arkansas Public Service Commission]]). Whether any adopted ordinance settles on a single threshold — and which projects the executed-utility-contract exemptions carve out — is unresolved as of this production.