Kathryn Hoffman, CEO of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, spoke earlier this month to a Tuesday Group gathering about AI data center projects in Minnesota and their environmental implications.
Data centers are already common around the state of Minnesota — “data center” acting as a catchall term for rooms full of computers that store and share data — but the recent trend of hyperscale data centers is new, resulting from the exponentially growing demand for data storage and computational power created by large language models associated with AI.
Hyperscale data centers are recognizable by their enormous physical size, modular scalability, and need to consume enormous amounts of electricity. They use components that allow new additions to be easily added and can individually consume as much power as entire cities.
They talk about present and future scenarios…
According to Cleanview, a market intelligence firm, there are 30 active data centers within the state. Of these, only two are hyperscale centers: Meta’s two buildings in Rosemount, which have power capacities of 168 MW and 140 MW. According to Hoffman, Minnesota is a potential new location for companies looking to build hyperscale centers, especially as Virginia and Texas — two states that have led the country in data center construction — begin to fill. Minnesota’s availability of water and electricity makes it a prime target.
Hoffman said that it would not take many data centers to massively increase electricity demand in the state, citing a statistic from the Star Tribune which reported that if just ten of these facilities were built, they would consume as much electricity as every household in the state. She warned that the increased energy demand would likely raise energy bills for taxpayers in the state and make it far more challenging for Minnesota to meet its goal of becoming carbon-free by 2040.
Several hyperscale projects have been proposed around Minnesota, although often under the cover of non-disclosure agreements signed with city officials. A lack of transparency has surrounded many of the proposed projects. Hoffman said that a whistleblower was the first to alert environmental groups about the proposals.