Data centers in Dickey County, North Dakota: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Dickey County's data center is Applied Digital's Polaris Forge 1 campus at 9685 87th Ave. SE, just west of Ellendale. It started in 2023 as a cryptocurrency mining site and is being expanded into an AI campus built for 400 megawatts of power, all leased to CoreWeave under a 15-year deal worth about $11 billion. The first 50 megawatts opened to CoreWeave in October 2025, and more buildings are still being finished.

Ellendale annexed the campus in 2025, so its property taxes go to the city instead of the township. Mayor Don Flaherty, who is also the county's tax director, said the growth answers rural decline: "This is not an Ellendale problem, it's a national problem." Not everyone agreed. At a packed city meeting in August 2025, residents in No Eminent Domain shirts said, "We want to let our elected representatives know we've had no representation or say in any of this." The campus paid about $4.3 million in property tax for 2026, the company says.

Farmers in the county have also fought JETx, a high-voltage power line on 150-foot towers running 92 miles from near Jamestown to a substation west of Ellendale. State regulators granted its route permit in June 2026, saying most landowner worries, including that the line could serve data centers, were outside their authority. "We just never had a fair shake at any of this," said Lucas Wald of Edgeley. In July 2026 the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the townships and landowners had no standing to challenge the line's 2024 approval.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.