Applied Digital celebrates energizing of facility in Ellendale, ND
Applied Digital hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, June 16, for its data center that is located about 1 mile west of Ellendale.
ELLENDALE, N.D. — In less than two years since breaking ground on its first facility, Applied Digital Corp. has constructed two data centers in North Dakota, but the future is even better for the company, according to CEO Wes Cummins.
“Before we hit the two-year mark of breaking ground on our first facility, we will have put almost 500 megawatts of data center capacity online in less than 24 months,” he said. “I don’t think you will find another startup or even maybe another company in the world that has done that amount of capacity in that amount of time and that’s great.”
Applied Digital, which is headquartered in Dallas, hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, June 16, for its data center that is located about 1 mile west of Ellendale.
Applied Digital designs, develops and operates next-generation data centers across North America to provide digital infrastructure solutions to the rapidly-growing high-performance computing industry, according to its website.
The 180-megawatt facility in Ellendale is Applied Digital’s second in North Dakota along with the facility in Jamestown that went online in 2022. Cummins said the Ellendale facility currently has around 160 megawatts online.
“A few weeks from now, we will be fully loaded at 180 megawatts,” he said.
Applied Digital entered into a five-year energy service agreement with Montana-Dakota Utilities Co.
“We believe it’s a good thing for Applied, it’s a good thing for our customers in North Dakota, it’s a good thing for our company and shareholders,” said Nicole Kivisto, CEO of MDU.
The project provides an array of benefits to the Ellendale area, the transmission grid, Montana-Dakota customers and MDU stockholders, according to a news release from MDU. The data center provides new property tax revenue to Dickey County and helps lessen congestion on the power grid in that region of North Dakota.
The revenue to Montana-Dakota will be shared between its North Dakota customers and the company as outlined in the energy service agreement. Customer benefits will be via credits on their monthly bills.
Cummins said he spoke to officials from the Bank of North Dakota and the Public Service Commission in December about the potential for North Dakota to be at the center of the artificial intelligence revolution.
“We've started signing contracts for that and we are going to expand here at Ellendale hopefully with that as well,” he said. “There is a whole new revolution of compute power coming. North Dakota is going to be at the center of that. Applied Digital hopefully is leading the way.”
The data center includes 10 buildings — most around 500 feet by 50 feet — and another for offices, a warehouse and its support center. The buildings host about 55,000 mining machines.
The company’s data center currently has 24 employees, said Nick Phillips, executive vice president of hosting operations and public affairs, after the ceremony. He said the company plans to have 29 total employees at the data center in Ellendale.
“If we do an expansion here, we might get as much as 60,” he said.
The mining machines mine Bitcoin, Cummins said after the ceremony.
“But, we’d like to expand AI (artificial intelligence) here,” he said.
Rep. Jim Grueneich, R-Ellendale, touted the economic impact that Applied Digital has brought to Ellendale. He said he knows people who are moving back to Ellendale for work.
“We are going to revitalize these small communities and it’s important for rural North Dakota and small-town America,” he said.
Next generation data centers open significant opportunities for the future diversification of the state’s economy while providing new jobs for Ellendale residents, said Gavin Miller, constituent services representative for Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., who read a letter signed by the senator.
“With North Dakota’s wide open spaces, abundant energy and ideal climate, there is a bright future for additional development within our state,” he said.
For more than 20 years, officials have worked to build a vibrant technology sector in North Dakota by creating the right business climate that promotes investment and innovation, said Phillips, who read a letter signed by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
“As a result, technology is serving as the third wave of our state’s economic growth following expansion in agriculture and energy,” he said. “Applied Digital’s new facility builds upon this progress providing important infrastructure and computing capacity to support a variety of applications across industries.”
Jamestown facility
Cummins said Applied Digital has expanded its plans for the new facility in Jamestown that will host high-performance computing applications such as natural language processing, machine learning and other high-performance computing applications developments. He said it will now be a 9-megawatt facility instead of 5 megawatts.
“A portion of the capacity turned on last month, and the remainder of the capacity turns on by the end of the year,” he said.
Applied Digital recently announced that its Jamestown facility successfully passed the integrated systems test for its first 200 kilowatts of high-performance computing equipment and systems.
The integrated systems test is the final step in ensuring that all systems, including powered equipment, operate in accordance with the design intent, according to a news release on Applied Digital’s website. The test verifies the performance and reliability of the systems under load, including power cuts and serves as a crucial evaluation that determines whether the design, equipment selection and construction meet the expected performance standards, ensuring optimal reliability and high availability.
