Digital Power Optimization data center, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin

Digital Power Optimization, a New York data center developer, told Wisconsin Rapids in July 2025 that it no longer intended to build the $200 million, 20-megawatt AI data center it had planned in the city, in Wood County, Wisconsin. A year later the city is weighing a far larger data center proposal from another developer on the former paper mill land next door, and its Plan Commission voted 7-0 on September 16, 2026 to recommend denying it.

Digital Power Optimization had leased about 6 acres of a 15-acre parcel owned by Consolidated Water Power Company, a Billerud subsidiary, west of State 34 near the Wisconsin Water Quality Center, with interconnection rights to an energized substation and a lease of up to 50 years. The utility runs 32 megawatts of hydroelectric power and once powered the entire paper mill, leaving spare capacity after the mill idled. CEO Andrew Webber said in January 2025 that the modular facility would draw about 20 megawatts at peak, employ 12 to 20 people, and begin "initial energization" in 2026.

Mayor Matt Zacher described the business model when the deal fell through: “They go in and lock up a contract, and then they go out and say hey we have 20mW of energy available any takers?” He said the city was now “more reluctant to give away 80MW of energy, and now we have no energy capacity to give to manufacturing, where you could employ 100- 200- 900 employees.” Digital Power Optimization did not reply to requests for comment.

The new proposal, which Anton Voronkin of the New York developer PNK Group has taken over, would turn about 210 acres of the former mill into a data center campus. City staff recommended denying the application from DC Rapids LLC, citing missing pieces including approval from the electric utility, employment and shift projections, construction traffic details and the orientation of the buildings. “This city has been through enough. You all need to be better, you need to do better. That starts with denying this atrocity of an application. Thank you,” said Marissa Johnson of the South Wood County Neighbors for Responsible Development. Supporters of the trades urged a yes vote, and a representative of the applicant, Bill Griffith, said the company would keep working with the city on the conditions.

Residents have raised water, electricity rates, air pollution and noise, and some have also objected to the developers' Russian backgrounds and business records, which Voronkin has dismissed. Zacher told Wisconsin Watch that perhaps 15 data center developers have explored the mill site, most concluding there was not enough electricity.

The Wisconsin Rapids Common Council takes up the permit on October 20, 2026, and is the body that decides it.