North Dakota
DataCentersExposed tracks 4 AI data centers in North Dakota — 3 operating and 0 in the pipeline — across 3 counties, drawing 600 MW of reported power demand from 0 tracked corporate operators. North Dakota's data-center tax break cost the state $19.4M in forgone revenue in FY2024 — $40.9M cumulatively.
Sources: Methodology, Coverage scorecard
DataCentersExposed tracks 4 data centers in North Dakota — 3 operating. The 1 North Dakota facilities with disclosed electrical capacity account for 600 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
North Dakota at a glance
Geographically, the buildout clusters: Cass County leads North Dakota with 2 facilities and a composite risk score of 6/100. Dickey County and Stutsman 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.
Most of the North Dakota fleet we track is already operating, which shifts the public conversation from "should this be built" to scrutiny of the deals already struck — the tax abatements granted, the water permits issued, and the rate impacts now showing up on bills.
We also surface the accountability trail: 1 state bill mentioning data centers and 6 recent news items are tracked for North Dakota 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.
The taxpayer price tag
“The reported tax for the sales tax exemption for technology equipment and computer software used in a qualified data center totaled $12,359,395 in tax years 2021 and 2022 combined, $9,147,273 in tax year 2023, and $19,390,865 in tax year 20…”
Program-wide cost of North Dakota'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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cass County | 2 | — | 6 |
| Dickey County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Stutsman County | 1 | — | 4 |
All tracked facilities
| Facility | Operator | Status | County | MW |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applied Digital / Ellendale Data Center | — | Dickey | 600 | |
| Apld Jamestown Datacenter | — | Stutsman | — | |
| Applied Digital | — | Mapped (unverified) | Cass | — |
| Dakota Carrier Network | — | Cass | — |