From AI data centers to natural gas, summit explores North Dakota energy scene

Nov. 19—WEST FARGO — North Dakota winters don’t often get a warm embrace.

However, the state’s weather makes it very appealing to anyone looking to set up an

artificial intelligence

data center.

That’s according to Laura Laltrello, chief operating officer of Applied Digital, a Texas-based company that operates an AI data center near Jamestown and is in the process of building additional centers in the state — one near Ellendale

and another outside Harwood.

Jamestown is about 100 miles due west of Fargo, while Ellendale is about 65 miles south of Jamestown and Harwood is just north of Fargo in Cass County.

Speaking as part of a panel discussion Wednesday, Nov. 19, at the Midwest Energy Summit held at the West Fargo Fairgrounds, Laltrello described the region’s climate advantage this way: “We get 210 days of free cooling a year.”

In addition to focusing on places that are thermally conducive to energy-hungry AI facilities, Laltrello said Applied Digital also strives to find land “that otherwise wouldn’t be consumed by anything else.”

The Ellendale site, she said, was also attractive for the isolated, off-grid energy potential of the strong winds that blow through the area.

“We don’t want to take away (power) from people and take away from homes,” Laltrello said.

She noted that while some AI data centers around the country use evaporation cooling to chill computer chips, which results in the venting of used water back into the atmosphere, Applied Digital employs a closed-loop approach that recirculates the same water over and over again.

As a result, she said, the future facility near Ellendale will use less water than a single-family household.

Laltrello added that when the facility at Ellendale, a community of about 1,100 people, is completed, it will be looking to employ 300 to 400 people.

Even now, she said, the number of construction workers in Ellendale is roughly equal to the town’s population.

Another energy-related project discussed at Wednesday’s summit, which was hosted by the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber of Commerce, was

the Bakken East pipeline

that is being developed by WBI Energy to move natural gas from western North Dakota to a connection point in Cass County, on the east edge of the state.

Mark Anderson, vice president for business development and marketing for WBI, said when the company develops a project like the pipeline, it places great importance on landowner relations and being as transparent as possible about what the company plans to do.

“We’re working with landowners as we speak,” Anderson said, adding WBI is hopeful the necessary regulatory approvals for the pipeline project can be secured by early 2028, with the pipeline possibly ready for service by 2029 or 2030.