Northern Data/ Ardent Data Center, McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania

Ardent Data Centers, part of Germany's Northern Data Group, opened a 41,000-square-foot AI data center at 615 McMichael Road in McKees Rocks, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, with a ribbon cutting in June 2025. The company bought the 1980s building and its 7.5-acre site for $7.12 million in January 2024 and retrofitted it for computing use. It opened with 5 megawatts of power, with plans to reach 20 megawatts in phases.

The retrofit uses liquid cooling piped straight to the computer chips, letting racks draw more than 135 kilowatts each, far more power than an older data center could handle. "In today's market, it's about speed and delivery," said Northern Data vice president Wayne Ginders, of the choice to redo an existing building rather than build new.

Data centers are now contested across Allegheny County. Allegheny County Council introduced a ban on hyperscale data centers on county-owned land in August 2026 and passed it unanimously in September; it does not affect Ardent's existing private site. Public land "should be for all of us to enjoy, not just for large corporations to speculate off of," said co-sponsor Dan Grzybek. County Executive Sara Innamorato said she supported protecting public land and would sign the bill, while asking council to clarify its definitions and scope.

At least 13 new data centers have been planned across western Pennsylvania, including in Springdale and Stowe in Allegheny County, where a divided Springdale Borough voted for a contentious project. Zoning for private land like the McMichael Road site is set by each municipality, not the county, so any expansion here would go to local officials. Grzybek said residents who want to keep data centers out should tell their municipal officials to update the zoning code.