VoltCore Bitcoin Mine data center, Somerville, Alabama

Sovereign Gazelle LLC, working with VoltCore, wants to build a 50-megawatt bitcoin mining data center on 15 acres at 369 Union Road outside Somerville, in southeast Morgan County, Alabama, near where State Roads 36 and 67 meet. Four homeowners would have to grant easements for 75-foot utility poles, and all have refused offers of cash, free internet for a year, a natural gas line and land restoration.

"It just changes the entire environment right now. Right now, it's beautiful, it's peaceful, it's country setting," said Will Hutson, and his wife Lyndsey said, "This road isn't rated for heavy trucks, so it would tear up our road." "There are more rules if I wanted to put a chicken house on my property, than there are if I wanted to install a data center," said neighbor Brock Wilson. VoltCore said the center would not create noise pollution, raise power bills or draw on water resources, and would create 20 to 30 jobs.

On June 23, 2026, the Morgan County Commission voted 4-0 for a 12-month moratorium on data centers in unincorporated Morgan County, which Chairman Ray Long called "a pause button" while the county studies the impacts. Joe Wheeler EMC's chief executive, Gene Kanikovsky, said the cooperative cannot refuse a member that meets its bylaws.

Residents traced the owners: probate records show Texas-based Sovereign Global Solutions bought the land in August 2025 and moved it in May 2026 to Sovereign Gazelle, both tied to Kevin Mohan of Texas, and Sovereign Gazelle's agent is the man who had visited them for VoltCore. By August, Long said the county had no legal authority to stop the project and called the moratorium just words, while homeowners raised money for an environmental study.