Sharon Data Center, Sharon, Pennsylvania

Keel Infrastructure, the company formerly known as Bitfarms, is developing a 110MW data center on 18 acres of the former Westinghouse Electric plant on Clark Street in Sharon, Mercer County, Pennsylvania. Sharon City Council approved the final land development plans for Keel's two data centers in July 2026, and the company said in August that transformers had been delivered to the site.

Keel acquired the site in October 2025 and has run a 30MW data center there. It stopped bitcoin mining at Sharon on June 29, 2026, as it moves from crypto mining into AI and high-performance computing.

WFMJ reported the proposal as a $5 billion data center near the old Westinghouse building, with construction expected to start in October 2026. Two 80MW substations are targeted for completion by the end of 2026, and Keel plans to install Nvidia Vera Rubin hardware. Alex Brammer, Keel's executive vice president of operations, said the closed-loop cooling would use about 1,000 gallons of water a day, and the company said it would pay for the power infrastructure upgrades it needs.

Keel's chief operating officer, Liam Wilson, pitched it as fixing an eyesore: "The fact that this piece of land has no future use, the fact that we're fixing up an eyesore, the fact that we're essentially, you know, giving this Brownfield facility another lease on life, I think that's all great".

The zoning board approved the plan in April 2026 with conditions, including a 70-decibel noise limit and a ban on using water from the nearby river. Residents at an information meeting worried about noise and utility bills; one told WKBN: "I've heard it causes noise. I have heard it makes your electricity bill go up. I have heard it makes your water bill go up, and it makes a lot of humming noise."

A Change.org petition to stop the data center had passed 2,100 signatures by May, and resident Stefanie Blair said opponents planned to take the fight to the state.

Sharon cannot ban the project: under Pennsylvania law a municipality cannot outlaw a lawful business, and city solicitor Brett Stedman said zoning can only "limit where they are and to provide adequate controls as to their use within the municipalities". In July council unanimously adopted the Mercer County Regional Planning Commission's land development ordinance for data centers, and the same month approved zoning changes covering water, electricity, noise and lighting for any future data center.

Keel's expansion is not bound by those new rules, but City Manager Bob Fiscus said the company agreed to them anyway. "We cant stop the data center but lets make the best of it," Fiscus said.

Keel CEO Ben Gagnon said in August that the company's priority sites, including Sharon, were nearing full permitting, with multiple prospective tenants negotiating for capacity. Sharon's broader rewrite of its zoning ordinance, covering water, electricity, noise and lighting standards for any future data center, was still under way in July.