Largest Hyperscale Data Center in U.S. Planned for Ohio’s Pike County

by Ron Prosek, East Shore UU Church

According to reporting in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the largest data center constructed so far in the U.S. is planned for Pike County in southern Ohio, about 100 miles east of Cincinnati.  The firm behind this planned construction is Open AI, which is to lease land from SB Energy, a Japanese firm, in the county.

By 2028, this new data center campus is expected to use 800 megawatts of electrical power.   This will require the construction of new power plants connected to the grid, natural gas generation, and new transmission lines and other infrastructure. Phase one of construction of this facility will begin this year and will continue through 2032, according to the plan.

The amount of electrical power that this site will use is equivalent to that of around 6.4 million homes!  That’s a lot of electric power!

So what will all this mean for the residents of Pike County, especially those living in the vicinity of this hyperscale data center?  We’ve seen this act before, though not quite to this scale.  It means noise, air pollution, higher electric rates, and a lot more heat generated into the environment.

According to a report by CNN, data centers create heat islands in their vicinities, raising temperatures in their neighborhoods by as much as 16 degrees.

This expansion of hyperscale data centers in the state is the continuation of the Silicon Valley billionaires’ plan to make Ohio “the Silicon Valley of the Midwest.”  For them it’s a screwing over of small towns and rural communities to make more huge profits.

As described in an earlier Newsletter, Peter Thiel and others, with the help of Jeffrey Epstein, began their plan in New Albany, Ohio by buying up large tracts of land.  They dangled huge promises of jobs and economic development in front of local officials and kept the whole thing as secret as they could by forcing these officials to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).  The whole thing got underway before the public noticed.  There was no public input. It was a done deal, and no one could do anything about it.

With this latest planned hyperscale data center planned for rural south central Ohio, can anyone doubt that these billionaires can never have enough? They want it all. But Ohioans are beginning to wake up.

A group called Conserve Ohio ( https://conserveohio.com/ ) is circulating petitions around the state for a ballot measure that would add an amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would limit data centers to a size that would only consume 25 megawatts of electric power as compared to the 800 megawatts that the Pike County facility would consume.

Conserve Ohio began circulating their petitions in April, but because of the late start, they did not have the 114,000 signatures required by the deadline for placement on the November 2026 ballot.  However, all the signatures that they have collected thus far are still valid.  Therefore, the campaign continues, and Conserve Ohio is now aiming for the 2027 ballot. 

I have folks in my church who are working with me to add more signatures to the petitions.  If you and/or your faith community would like to help, just visit the Conserve Ohio website -- https://conserveohio.com/ -- to download petitions and instructions for circulating them.  Every signature brings us closer to letting Ohioans have a say on data centers.  Let’s do it!