Aligned NEO-01 data center, Sandusky, Ohio

Aligned Data Centers is building NEO-01, the first of up to four buildings on its data center campus in Perkins Township, just south of Sandusky in Erie County, Ohio, and expects to finish it in 2026. The company broke ground in May 2024 on the 129-acre site at 2509 Hayes Avenue, paying $52 million for the former manufacturing site in 2023, and is putting more than $200 million into the first phase, which it lists at 96 megawatts of power across 200,000 square feet. Aligned says its Ohio buildings use a closed-loop water system designed to use very little water for cooling.

The site was an automotive bearing plant built around 1947, later run by Delphi and then Kyklos, that once employed about 5,000 people before closing around 2017. Township trustees, the school board and the career center agreed to put 70% of the new property-tax revenue from the buildings back into the project for 30 years and share the rest, and Aligned made a $325,000 upfront payment, most of which went to the schools. "From my lens, as an educator, this has been a godsend," said Perkins Local Schools Superintendent Lonny Rivera, whose district has failing boilers.

Power and water remain open questions: the local newsletter StayTunedSandusky reported in 2025 that Aligned plans 15 natural gas engines on site capable of 282 megawatts rather than drawing from the local grid, and that officials had not said where the project's water would come from. The data center is expected to create 18 permanent jobs by February 2027.

At least 138 Ohio municipalities and townships had active data center moratoriums as of September 17, 2026, the Ohio Capital Journal reported, though Perkins Township, governed by a three-member board of trustees, has not adopted one.