Monarch Compute Campus (formerly Mountaineer GigaSystem) data center, Point Pleasant, West Virginia

Nscale Global Holdings, a British company backed by Nvidia, Nokia and Dell, bought American Intelligence and Power Corp on March 16, 2026, taking over the Monarch Compute Campus data center project north of Point Pleasant in Mason County, West Virginia, on land that began as Fidelis New Energy's Mountaineer GigaSystem. The campus takes in up to 2,250 acres between the Ohio River, the CSX tracks and Route 62, and Nscale announced a letter of intent the same day to supply Microsoft with 1.35 gigawatts of AI computing power. The first phase, 2 gigawatts, or 2 billion watts, is due for installation across 2026 and 2027, with the campus running in the first half of 2028; full build is planned at 8 to 10 gigawatts.

The power comes from onsite gas generators rather than the public grid: 2 gigawatts of fast-response units ordered from Caterpillar, delivered between September 2026 and August 2027, backed by batteries to absorb the swings an AI load makes. A 30-mile, 24-inch gas pipeline from Hope Gas, costing $250 million, will feed the plant, and cooling water will come from the Ohio River. The company says it will capture carbon to offset emissions and that its design uses less water with no effect on municipal supply or residential users.

Permit filings describe a 2.16 gigawatt gas plant with 864 reciprocating engines, machines that burn gas on site to make electricity, powering three data centers. The Environmental Integrity Project ranked the plant second in the country for projected greenhouse gas emissions among planned data center gas plants, estimating 1,043 tons of carbon monoxide, 900 tons of volatile organic compounds, 506 tons of nitrogen oxides and 38 tons of fine particulate matter a year.

State inspectors have cited the site four times since May 2026, on May 24, May 28, June 4 and June 10, for a broken silt fence, sediment-laden water discharging into the Route 62 culvert, a missing section of erosion control, earthwork done before it was approved, and sediment left in an unnamed tributary. Flooding over the weekend of May 23 and 24 reached about half a dozen Mason County homes, mainly damaging garages, crawlspaces and heating and air conditioning equipment.

The company expects to employ more than 2,800 people, and Marshall University and Mountwest Community and Technical College have signed a training and apprenticeship agreement meant to give Mason County residents first call on the jobs. The West Virginia Economic Development Authority approved a $62.5 million forgivable loan for the project in 2023, of which $25 million has been paid out.

More than 60 people met in Point Pleasant on March 17, 2026, at a gathering organized by West Virginia Citizen Action, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition and Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services. Morgan King, climate and energy program manager at WV CAG, told them the plant would need five million gallons of water a day, about what the city of Charleston uses, and said House Bill 2014 had stripped the county of power to regulate it.

Mike Wooten, who lives near the site at Camp Conley, said he was not against the project outright but wanted "to be protected by the people [who are] supposed to protect me," naming the governor, legislators, the EPA and the permit process. Elaine Matheny, of Point Pleasant, offered to help organize residents and told them to read up on data centers built elsewhere, and King said: "You fight big corporations by building power in communities and by building up with numbers. That comes back to the organizing, getting together, talking with your neighbors."