Minnesota
DataCentersExposed tracks 10 AI data centers in Minnesota — 4 operating and 1 in the pipeline — across 8 counties, drawing 5 MW of reported power demand from 6 tracked corporate operators. Minnesota's data-center tax break cost the state $68.7M in forgone revenue in FY2024.
Sources: Methodology, Coverage scorecard
DataCentersExposed tracks 10 data centers in Minnesota — 4 operating and 1 proposed. The 1 Minnesota facilities with disclosed electrical capacity account for 5 MW of demand on the grid — power that competes with homes and businesses for the same generation and transmission.
Reporting by Eric Keller · Updated May 29, 2026
Minnesota at a glance
The largest footprint in Minnesota belongs to DataBank Holdings, Ltd., behind 1 tracked facility. Flexential Corp., H5 Data Centers, and Meta Platforms, Inc. round out the most active operators in the state. Many of these sites are filed under shell or project names rather than the parent's — our operator column resolves them back to the real corporate parent wherever the chain is documented.
Geographically, the buildout clusters: Hennepin County leads Minnesota with 3 facilities and a composite risk score of 7/100. Carver County and St. Louis County follow. Our county risk score weights project exposure (40%), power demand (30%), water draw (15%), and land footprint (15%); the full breakdown is shown on each county page.
Minnesota is not done growing. 1 facility is in the pipeline — proposed, permitted, or under construction — which is where residents still have a say at zoning hearings and in rate cases. Each pending project is a decision about land, water, electricity prices, and tax revenue that hasn't been finalized.
We also surface the accountability trail: 8 state bills mentioning data centers and 6 recent news items are tracked for Minnesota below, pulled from LegiScan and GDELT and refreshed automatically. Legislation is linked to the counties and operators it names; news is classified by community sentiment.
Top operators in Minnesota
The taxpayer price tag
“gross forgone state tax revenue ranges from a low of $43.9 million in 2013 to a high of $101.6 million in 2015 before slowly declining to $68.7 million by 2024.”
Program-wide cost of Minnesota's data-center tax incentive(s), reported by the state — not attributable to a single facility. “Proj” = the state's own forward estimate; all other figures are realized/audited. Each links to its primary source.
County risk leaderboard
| County | Facilities | Pipeline | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hennepin County | 3 | — | 7 |
| Carver County | 1 | — | 4 |
| St. Louis County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Ramsey County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Anoka County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Olmsted County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Dakota County | 1 | — | — |
| Rice County | 1 | 1 | — |
Pipeline & proposals
All tracked facilities
| Facility | Operator | Status | County | MW |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faribault Data Center | — | Proposed | Rice | — |
| Ark Duluth Data Center | Prime Data Centers | St. Louis | — | |
| DataBank | DataBank Holdings, Ltd. | Hennepin | — | |
| Encompass Minneapolis Facility | — | Mapped (unverified) | Anoka | — |
| Epic / Mayo Data Center | — | Mapped (unverified) | Olmsted | — |
| Flexential Minneapolis - Chaska | Flexential Corp. | Carver | — | |
| H5 Minneapolis | H5 Data Centers | Ramsey | — | |
| Meta Rosemount | Meta Platforms, Inc. | Mapped (unverified) | Dakota | — |
| Minnesota Gateway Data Center | — | Mapped (unverified) | Hennepin | — |
| Verizon - Bloomington Network | Verizon Communications Inc. | Mapped (unverified) | Hennepin | — |