(Photo from Bill Cork's Facebook page)
- MDA head Bill Cork said this week that while 2025 was the agency’s most successful year, 2026 will exceed that mark.
The head of the Mississippi Development Authority hinted earlier this week that the state will soon announce another major investment in the Magnolia State with thousands of new jobs in the pipeline.
Without giving too many details, MDA Executive Director Bill Cork told the attendees at a Stennis Capitol Press Forum luncheon in Jackson that while 2025 was a great year for economic development in the state, 2026 will surpass it.
“We will already break the 2025 record this year with what we already have in the pipeline,” Cork said. “We will be announcing another 2,000-job project within the next 60 days. It’s just an amazing run, and there is no end in sight.”
That pipeline of projects for 2026 is long, Cork said.
However, while major developments like the $20 billion xAI data center in Southaven tend to make headlines, MDA also focused on smaller projects are just as important and more plentiful in areas across Mississippi.
“The large projects get a lot of attention, and deservedly so,” Cork said. “But through the first week of January in 2026, MDA has been involved in closing more than 219 projects. So, we had about five or six big notable projects, but we spent most of our time not working on those.”
Those smaller projects run the gamut, from sawmills to advanced manufacturing operations and a steel mill. Cork noted that the projects often take years to “evolve.”
“So, these are the kinds of projects we are most proud of, and it’s where we spend most of our time,” Cork explained.
Later, he said the xAI data center took only about two weeks from pitch to signature, the speed of which was noted by xAI founder Elon Musk when the North Mississippi project was announced.
In the last five years, MDA and the governor’s office have worked with companies and local leaders to create north of 24,000 jobs while bringing in more than $66 billion in capital investment to Mississippi.
Cork said while 2025 was the agency’s most successful year, 2026 will exceed that mark. Today, he said, MDA has more than $90 billion in capital investment and 35,000 jobs in the pipeline with more than 140 projects in the works.
And that, Cork said, “speaks for itself.”
