Hildebran updates zoning rules as AI data center proposal moves forward

During a special called town council meeting Wednesday, the Hildebran Town Council passed a change to zoning ordinances and advanced the prospects of landing a large data center in town.

Central to the ordinance changes was replacing the term “Cryptocurrency Mining” with “Critical Infrastructure Facilities.”

The ordinance change marks an early step in what could become a larger effort to position Hildebran for construction of a major data center, a project that could bring substantial new tax revenue and investment to both the town and Burke County.

The action follows a “comprehensive review of critical digital infrastructure operations and their potential impacts on our community,” said Hildebran Town Manager Logan Shook in a statement.

The study, conducted by Hildebran and the Western Piedmont Council of Governments, was prompted by DigiPower X, an AI data center infrastructure firm that has signaled plans to build a 200-megawatt artificial intelligence data center on 40 acres in Hildebran.

The change ensures that large computing facilities, including data centers, must follow the same zoning rules and safeguards already in place, such as noise limits, setbacks, buffers, site plans, and conditional zoning approval.

When the ordinance was originally written, many high-power computing sites were associated with noisy cryptocurrency mining. But as the industry has evolved, companies like DigiPower X are increasingly building facilities to support cloud computing and AI processing, which are nearly silent by comparison.

Other than a 2022 acquisition of 19.5 acres of undeveloped land at 199 Cline Park Court on the north side of Hildebran, and a 2026 expansion of adjoining property that brings total land holdings to 40.5 acres, the DigiPower X project is still in its infancy.

No permit requests have been filed. The project has not been a focused source of public and extended conversation with elected officials and local economic development leaders.

Yet DigiPower’s website lists the Hildebran project as “In Development” in its portfolio of operational data centers. It would be the largest of DigiPower’s data centers.

“At this time, the Town of Hildebran has not received any active zoning permit applications for a critical digital infrastructure facility,” Shook said. “Should an application be submitted in the future, it would be required to follow the conditional zoning process and meet all applicable regulatory requirements prior to consideration.”

If DigiPower builds the type of artificial-intelligence data center it has signaled for Hildebran, the economic impact on the town and Burke County could be measured in hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars.

A mid-sized facility, as described in DigiPower X’s documents, could involve a local investment ranging from roughly $200 million to $500 million in buildings, equipment, and infrastructure.

The proposed site is adjacent to a Duke Energy Substation and the Norfolk Southern Railway.

Hundreds of construction jobs during the building phase could translate into business for local restaurants, hotels, and retailers. Property tax revenues could grow by the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Once operational, a data center of that size could likely employ several dozen permanent workers in technical and security positions in high-paying jobs.

The project would secure a viable presence in Burke County in the high-tech arena. Burke is currently encircled with data centers that feed local coffers: Google in Lenoir, Apple in Maiden, Meta (Facebook) in Forest City, Microsoft in Conover.

DigiPower X is a small infrastructure company compared with hyperscale, globally recognized operators like Amazon and Google.

Its existing technological footprint includes data centers in Columbiana, Ala.; North Tonawanda, N.Y.; and Buffalo, N.Y. Hildebran would be the firm’s largest, with a projected capacity of 200 megawatts.

The state has become one of the fastest-growing hubs for digital infrastructure in the Southeast because of its available land, energy infrastructure, and favorable business policies, attracting billions of dollars in investment from companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

About 50 data centers of all sizes are in 16 cities in North Carolina, according to DataCenters.com, a leading technology marketplace and aggregator.

“This is a conversation that is ongoing in a lot of communities, and it is a conversation that leadership here is going to need to address,” said Alan Wood, CEO of Burke Economic Development, Inc. “There are brokers scouring the country looking for sites. And (those sites) are here.”

Those infrastructures bring economic windfalls to the communities in which they operate.

“The tax base that they can bring can be tremendous,” Wood said.

DigiPower X’s Hildebran site would likely be built in phases, according to company documents. Potential construction and deployment could begin around 2028 or 2029, depending on regulatory approvals and the construction of supporting infrastructure.

“They are very well-paying jobs, significantly above our average here,” Wood said. “But on the other side, they use a tremendous amount of power, and they can use a significant amount of water. Those are the pros and cons of it. It’s going to be up to each community to analyze this data and determine what’s the right fit. And I think that’s something that you’re going to hear a lot of conversation about here and across the country.”

“This is a race over who controls AI and the data around AI in the future. And we got to figure this out,” he said.