Project Firecracker (Microsoft) data center, Rome, Georgia

Microsoft's Project Firecracker is a data center campus planned on 347 acres on Huffaker Road, outside Rome in Floyd County, Georgia. Microsoft announced it at the Rome-Floyd County Development Authority's meeting on October 30, 2023, and the authority voted to issue $1 billion in bonds and a 12-year tax abatement. The company said it would invest more than $1 billion and create 150 jobs, and expected the facility to take about three years to build.

Microsoft agreed to pay $40,000 an acre, about $13.9 million in all, for land the authority had worked since 2021 to get zoned Heavy Industrial with the owner, Floyd County 118 LLC. "Rome and Floyd County's industrial zoning and strong infrastructure led to our decision to locate our data center campus there," said Paul Englis, Microsoft's director of community engagement. "Ratepayers and taxpayers should not foot the bill for this project," Englis said.

Rome City Commissioner Mark Cochran said the data center "represents the future of investment for our area," pointing to technology jobs that do not require interstate access. A Microsoft spokesperson said the company did not "have anything definitive to share at this time."

At Berry College, about five miles away, chief information officer Penny Evans-Plants said residents' worries about water and power were fair: "I think those are legitimate concerns, because of what we've seen happen at other locations around the country where data centers are located, the amount of power and water they use."

Floyd County commissioners approved an 80-day moratorium on new data centers on June 9, 2026, then adopted a data center ordinance on August 25, 2026 after a public hearing. It allows data centers only on Heavy Industrial land, keeps buildings at least 600 feet from homes, limits noise at a residential property line to 65 decibels by day and 55 at night, bars private wells and direct withdrawals from surface water, and requires a bond or other guarantee to pay for cleanup when a site closes.

The rules apply to future projects in unincorporated Floyd County. The Huffaker Road land was already zoned for heavy industry before Microsoft's purchase was announced.