Confidentiality, NDAs and Code Names in Data Center Site Searches

A large data center search often runs for months before anyone outside the developer, its consultants and a few public agencies knows it exists. There are three practical reasons. The first is land price: a seller who knows a hyperscaler is the buyer will price the land on the buyer’s budget, not on comparable sales. The second is negotiating position: experts interviewed by NPR say NDAs give developers an edge as they move from county to county in search of the best deals.¹ The third is competitive information. The tenant, its capacity plans and its power needs can be market-moving, and companies say confidentiality is needed to protect corporate secrets.¹

Code names are the simplest tool. In Louisiana, the NDAs for a campus later named Delta Forge 1, a $3.6 billion project expected to draw 300 MW in its first phase, were written under the code names “Project Lightning” and “Project Pixel.”¹ Purchasing entities are the second tool. In Chesterfield County, Virginia, two LLCs bought sites for code-named data center projects for nearly $60 million in 2025, and neither buyer could immediately be linked to a specific developer.⁴

Confidentiality does not change what the site has to prove. Power, zoning and buildable acreage still have to be confirmed, which is why a quiet search usually starts with desktop work (see desktop screening vs. field assessment) before anyone contacts the utility or county.

Private-side NDAs are the least controversial. A developer typically asks consultants, brokers and engineers to sign before receiving the project brief, and asks a landowner to keep terms confidential in the letter of intent or option agreement. These clauses usually restrict disclosure of the price, the buyer’s identity and the intended use, with carve-outs for the owner’s attorney, lender, tax adviser and anything required by law.

Landowners should read them closely. In Mason County, Kentucky, NBC News reported that a farmer was offered $10 million for his land and declined to sign the NDA attached to the offer.² A seller who signs should confirm that the agreement allows family members and advisers to see the terms, that it ends if the deal terminates, and that it does not stop the owner from speaking at a public hearing once an application is filed. Our guide to selling or leasing land to a developer covers the rest of the negotiation.

• What is confidential: price, buyer identity, project details, or all three?
• Who may be told: spouse, heirs, attorney, accountant, lender, tenant farmer?
• When it ends: on closing, on termination, on public announcement, or a fixed date?
• What is excluded: information already public, and disclosures required by law or court order.

The contested NDAs are the ones signed by elected officials and economic development staff. A 2025 NBC News review of more than 30 proposals across 14 states found that local officials often signed NDAs and worked with shell companies, sometimes keeping project information from their constituents.² Researchers at the University of Mary Washington found NDAs in 25 of 31 Virginia localities with existing, approved or proposed data centers.³

Louisiana shows how far it can reach. Records requests by Gulf States Newsroom and Type Investigations found that signers included at least five state senators, a parish assessor and every member of the industrial development board that negotiated the Delta Forge 1 deal; that board approved it in a public meeting with little discussion.¹ In Rosemount, Minnesota, the city agreed to keep Meta’s name confidential during negotiations, and the University of Minnesota, which sold 280 acres for the project for $39.7 million, did the same.⁸ Officials who learn of a project late can be the strongest critics: a St. Louis County, Minnesota, commissioner said she was shocked that colleagues had known about a large proposal six months before the public.⁹

Most states’ public records laws include some protection for economic development negotiations, but the scope varies and is usually narrow. Virginia’s is a useful example. Section 2.2-3705.6 lets a public body withhold proprietary information that a business provided under a promise of confidentiality for business development, and internal working papers about a business considering a location in Virginia where competition or bargaining is involved and release would harm the public body’s financial interest.⁵ The exclusion is discretionary, so the custodian may still release the records, and the Virginia FOIA Council notes that exemptions are to be narrowly construed.⁶

Utility proceedings are a second channel. Large-load customers often appear in commission dockets through load forecasts, special contracts and tariff cases, and utilities may file sensitive parts confidentially. In Louisiana, Entergy’s quarterly load forecasts are filed confidentially, and a recent filing said even the public version would not show expected load from Meta’s planned Richland Parish data center, which a critic argued did not qualify as highly sensitive market information.⁷ Developers should expect that capacity requests, interconnection studies and large-load tariff terms may become partly public as a project advances.

Secrecy has become a political issue in its own right, and it is one reason projects end up as contested fights. As of October 2026:

• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro barred agencies under his jurisdiction from using NDAs in future data center projects.³
• Minnesota HF 4814 would bar a local elected official from signing an NDA or contract that restricts disclosure about a potential data center in the area they represent, and would make such terms void.¹⁰ As of April 2026 the Senate companion had cleared two committees, but the House bill stalled in committee after a party-line block; we found no record that it became law before the session ended.⁹¹¹
• A Wisconsin bill would prohibit developers from entering NDAs meant to conceal project details and bar local approval of a project whose operator did, while preserving trade secret protections.¹²
• Delaware SB 312 would bar state agencies, counties and municipalities from signing NDAs that restrict public access to information about data centers of 100 MW or more; it passed the Senate 20–0 and the House 37–3 in June 2026 and, as of mid-2026, awaited the governor’s action.¹³
• Bills to ban data center NDAs have also been introduced in Michigan, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Ohio.¹⁴
• Sen. Richard Blumenthal cited reports that Amazon sought to limit what Pima County, Arizona, officials could say about a proposed $3.6 billion project, as part of a broader Senate inquiry into data center secrecy.³

Bill status changes quickly, so check the legislature before relying on any of these. For the wider legislative picture, see state data center legislation trends.

Confidentiality is temporary. A project usually becomes public at the first filing that requires a name or a description of the use: a rezoning or special use application, an incentive agreement on a public agenda, a utility filing, or a land closing in the county records. Developers who treat that moment as the start of engagement, rather than the end of secrecy, tend to have fewer surprises.

1. 01Map every public body the project will need and what each must disclose by law, and when.
2. 02Keep NDAs with officials narrow, time-limited and consistent with the state’s records law; assume they may be requested and published.
3. 03Prepare the public explanation (power, water, noise, taxes, jobs) before the first filing, not after; see community engagement and public hearings.
4. 04For landowners, have an attorney review any NDA before signing, and ask how it ends.

A confidential pre-screen of power, zoning and land constraints can tell a developer or owner whether a site is worth going public with at all; you can get a site reviewed.