Applied Digital Jamestown data center, Jamestown, North Dakota

Applied Digital built its first data center in Jamestown, North Dakota, in 2021: an $82 million, 106-megawatt facility for blockchain computing in Stutsman County that now employs 40 people. It was the company's first site before Applied Digital expanded to Ellendale, to Harwood near Fargo, and to a site approved about 40 miles northwest of Bismarck.

Statewide, the argument over new data centers is about noise, bills and water, and Applied Digital's Nick Phillips has pointed to an Electric Power Research Institute study that found data center growth pushed electricity rates down 6 percent between 2019 and 2024. Robert Mayo, a research specialist at North Dakota State University's Challey Institute who wrote a guide to the industry for the state, said his aim was that "citizens and policymakers have accurate facts so that they can, based on those facts, choose the policy that will get them the result they want."

Senate Majority Leader David Hogue created an interim legislative committee on AI and data centers to study the subject ahead of next year's legislative session; it first met in mid-July 2026, and counties are updating their own data center application policies.