An artist’s rendering of the Monarch Compute Campus near Pt. Pleasant. (Photo Provided)

CHARLESTON — A London-based company late Monday announced an agreement that includes building one of the world’s largest AI facilities in Mason County.

Nscale said it has signed an agreement to acquire American Intelligence & Power Corp., sponsored by Fidelis New Energy and 8090 Industries, that includes the Monarch Compute Campus north of Point Pleasant where it plans to construct the facility.

“Nscale is a global company, and the U.S. is the world’s largest AI infrastructure market. AI infrastructure needs to be built where demand is, and right now a significant share of that demand is in the United States,” Josh Payne, Nscale CEO, said in Monday’s announcement by the company. “Monarch allows us to meet that demand. The acquisition builds on our existing U.S. footprint and reflects the pace at which we are scaling to serve customers around the world.”

The 2,250-acre Monarch Compute Campus represents the first state-certified utility grids built for AI workloads in the United States. Its initial power capacity of 2 gigawatts is expected by the first half of 2028 with an expansion to about 8 gigawatts planned for 2031.

The site has access to a long-term, low-cost, onsite-powered microgrid to support multi-gigawatt expansion, a bottleneck in the buildout of in-demand, cutting-edge AI, the company said.

There is opposition to the project.

“Residents are saying they don’t want the data center in their community,” said Morgan King, climate and energy program manager for Citizen Action.

Data centers can use extreme amounts of water and are among the heaviest energy consumers in the country, according to Citizen Action.

Light and noise pollution also are problems if the centers are near communities, King said. The constant buzzing created at a data center can be harmful to health, she said.

Also, there has been little community participation or transparency, King said. Most of the jobs to be generated by the project are from construction, so when it’s done, they leave, she said.

“We have significant concerns about the project,” King said.

The agreement is tremendous news for the region, Keith Burdette, president of the Polymer Alliance Zone, which includes Mason County.

The project is aligned with Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s goals to create more of these types of industry in West Virginia, said Burdette, a former state Commerce Department secretary and executive director of the West Virginia Development Office.

Morrisey in a release on Monday afternoon called the project “another major vote of confidence in West Virginia’s future.

“A decision to expand the Monarch Compute Campus shows that our state is becoming a destination for the industries that will drive the next generation of economic growth,” he said in a release Monday afternoon.

Microgrid legislation and the 50 by 50 energy strategy to raise electrical capacity to 50 gigawatts by 2050 ensures that West Virginia will have capacity to support massive projects like artificial intelligence and advanced computing, he said. Companies are looking for reliable energy, skilled workers and a pro-growth environment, the governor said.

“Things are starting to come together,” Delegate Scot Heckert, R-Wood, a member of the House of Delegates, said.

The issue is everyone working together so the course of the state is in the right direction, he said.

“That’s the big thing,” Heckert said.

Progress doesn’t come overnight and not everything works as first intended, Heckert said.

“We plant the seed and then see how the crop grows,” he said.

Marshall University President Brad D. Smith on Monday also announced the university with Nscale will develop training and apprenticeship programs to ensure residents are first in line for engineering and facility management roles. Marshall will work with Mountwest Community and Technical College, he said.

“Nscale’s investment in the Monarch Campus represents a generational opportunity for our students,” Smith said. “By working together, we are building a homegrown talent pipeline that ensures the high-tech careers of the future remain right here in the Mountain State.”

The center could employ around 2,800 people, he said.

“We build where the energy is, and we invest deeply in the communities that welcome us — bringing quality jobs and long-term opportunity,” Payne said. “Marshall University shares our belief that the people already rooted in a place are its greatest asset. Together, we’re committed to developing the next generation of AI infrastructure talent right here in West Virginia and making the Monarch Campus a global hub.”

The agreement also establishes Nscale Energy & Power, a global division of Nscale headquartered in Houston, Texas, to be led by Daniel Shapiro as chief power officer and Bengt Jarlsjo as deputy chief power officer.

AIPCorp and Fidelis New Energy organization are part of the acquisition with AIPCorp supporting development of the Monarch Compute Campus and Nscale’s future global development and expansion operations

“The vision for AIPCorp was always to build the vertically integrated power-and-compute model that this combination achieves instantly,” Shapiro said. “This combination plus Nscale’s disciplined balance sheet delivers exactly what the high-growth AI market demands: a debottlenecked, integrated neocloud platform built to scale,” Shapiro said.