Core Scientific Grand Forks 1 data center, Grand Forks, North Dakota

Grand Forks 1, Core Scientific's data center at 5601 11th Ave S in Grand Forks, in Grand Forks County, North Dakota, has 100 MW of total power capacity on a 20-acre campus with 90,000 square feet of buildings, according to the company. Core Scientific listed the data center in October 2025 at about 70MW of billable power with the status "Future Colocation Site", meaning space to be leased to customers.

Core Scientific announced the site in May 2021 as a mining and hosting facility, developed in partnership with Nodak Electric Cooperative and Minnkota Power Cooperative, and said it would create up to 12 local jobs that year. Core Scientific is shifting its business from bitcoin mining to leasing data center capacity for AI: colocation made up 83 percent of its second-quarter 2026 revenue, and in July it signed 15-year leases with AMD for 529 megawatts at other sites.

Grand Forks has two data centers today, this one and a cryptocurrency mine run by Sundog Mining, the Grand Forks Herald reported in September 2026. County Administrator Tom Ford said there are no plans at present for a new one, but Grand Forks County commissioners were shown a model data center ordinance in June, covering permits, use standards, fence locations, landscaping buffers and wastewater outlets. Ford said: "We need to have some kind of process and policy in place for when that time comes." City Administrator Todd Feland said AI data centers could bring more investment and jobs than cryptocurrency facilities, and the city and county have been talking with Minnkota Power, Nodak Electric and Xcel Energy about how much the grid can support.

Elsewhere in North Dakota the boom is further along. Near Ellendale, Applied Digital runs two data centers and is building two more, and Mayor Don Flaherty described heavy traffic, worn roads and tight housing. "Right now, things are pretty hectic," Flaherty said. Applied Digital's $3 billion data center near Harwood has drawn criticism from residents, and a public forum on hyperscale AI data centers was held on August 28.

Rules for any new data center in Grand Forks County would come from the Grand Forks County Commission, which is weighing a development policy like those it has for wind and solar farms.