Small Towns, Big Impact: Building Sustainable AI Factories in America’s Heartland

By Wes Cummins, Applied Digital

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This chapter is an excerpt from Greener Data: Volume Three, launched on Earth Day 2026. Featuring perspectives from 75+ sustainability leaders across the digital infrastructure ecosystem, the full book is available now on Amazon.

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I was born and raised in a small town, a place that taught me the power of showing up, keeping your word, and building something that lasts. It’s where I learned that big ideas don’t need big egos, they need discipline, perseverance, and people who are committed to hard work. That’s the DNA of Applied Digital.

Growing up in rural America, you learn things that stick with you. You understand how tight-knit communities operate, how they thrive, and how they struggle and overcome challenges. You see what happens when economic opportunities dwindle. When the next generation of talent starts to depart due to a lack of viable pathways forward. When a town that once buzzed slowly fades.

But you also see what these communities have that many places don’t. The pride residents take in their homes and their neighborhoods. The skills, the work ethic, and the resilience that come from weathering hard times together. You learn that small towns aren’t lacking opportunity because they lack capability; they’re sometimes just overlooked. And you learn that when the right economic development arrives in a place that’s been historically ignored, it transforms everything: the tax base, the talent pipeline, and its future. That insight guided me in shaping Applied Digital and becoming the pioneers in AI infrastructure development.

From a Small Town, Guided by the North Star

When we began searching for sites to develop our Polaris Forge campuses, next-generation AI factories that power the age of intelligence, we analyzed power availability and network connectivity, just as any data center developer would. But we also considered the communities themselves: real people in real places who stand to benefit from infrastructure investments arriving, or risk falling further behind when they don’t.

The Polaris Forge philosophy reflects a broader truth about where digital infrastructure is headed. Polaris — the North Star — symbolizes the clarity required to navigate a rapidly changing landscape, while Forge represents the discipline and innovation needed to turn raw potential into real capability. This philosophy guides a site-selection strategy centered on regions where natural resources and power infrastructure align, unlocking underutilized energy capacity and converting it into scalable compute.

These aren’t just locations on a map; they’re communities with the assets to become the next engines of the digital economy. For decades, opportunity has ignored them. Today, with the right approach and the right partners, they are transforming that dormant potential into long-term prosperity. 

The logic is straightforward: the future of sustainable AI isn’t just about using less water or achieving better power efficiency, though those things matter tremendously. It’s about fundamentally reimagining where and how we build. The best sites for the most advanced technology on Earth are often found in small towns that Silicon Valley (or the majority of the world, for that matter) has never heard of.

The Hidden Opportunity in Stranded Power

When ChatGPT launched in December 2022, everything changed. Within weeks, the world would need exponentially more computing power. We knew AI was capable of transforming society; what we didn’t know was whether the world could develop the necessary infrastructure at the required speed to keep up with the unprecedented demand.

Traditional approaches proved inadequate for the challenge. Legacy data centers were unable to handle the thermal loads and power densities of AI workloads. And there simply wasn’t enough power available near major metropolitan areas with existing fiber infrastructure.

Here’s where deep knowledge of America’s heartland provided a competitive advantage. While others pursued conventional locations or retrofits, we discovered untapped potential in often overlooked markets. Take North Dakota. A state that has massive wind farms generating clean, renewable energy. However, sometimes the wind blows too hard. When production exceeds what the grid can handle, wind farms shut down turbines and curtail electricity production because there’s no one there to use it. This stranded power exists but can’t be captured or transmitted to where it’s needed.

Across rural America, there are pockets of abundant energy that remain underutilized due to grid constraints, a lack of demand, or transmission limitations. Utility companies abhor it. Wind farm operators lose revenue. And from an environmental perspective, it’s sad that clean energy goes to waste.

But what if you could build an AI factory right in the heart of America? What if, instead of competing for scarce power in crowded markets, you partnered with utilities to solve their oversupply problem?

That’s exactly what has been done at Polaris Forge 1 in Ellendale, North Dakota. We have located our flagship 400-megawatt AI factory campus in an area with significant grid congestion due to nearby wind farms. The result transforms both the energy system and the local economy: we get abundant, low-cost, renewable power, and the utility can actually use energy that would otherwise be curtailed. We’re not competing with residents for electricity. We’re consuming power that has no other customer.

This approach fundamentally changes the sustainability equation. Every kilowatt-hour we consume is one that would have otherwise been wasted. Our presence makes the renewable energy system more economically viable, which supports further investment in clean energy infrastructure. It’s where power meets purpose.

Rethinking Cooling: From Water-Intensive to Waterless

When we started building in Ellendale, we faced a simple reality: there wasn’t abundant water available. In a farming community where agriculture depends on every drop, we did not want to compete with farmers and residents for this precious resource.

This constraint drove innovation that became one of our greatest competitive advantages and a defining characteristic of every Polaris Forge campus we build. In places like Des Moines and Omaha, water usage has become a major community concern as tech companies’ facilities strain local supplies.

We wanted to take a different path: direct-to-chip liquid cooling in a closed-loop system that uses effectively zero water. The only water we use? What our employees drink and use in the bathrooms. That’s it.

But the benefits go beyond water conservation. Direct-to-chip liquid cooling is dramatically more efficient, delivering the kind of performance the age of intelligence demands. At our Ellendale campus, we’re achieving a PUE of 1.17, with expectations to reach 1.12 or even 1.1, well under the industry standard of 1.35 to 1.5.

When operating AI factories at the scale of hundreds of megawatts, every percentage point of efficiency matters. By dedicating significantly more energy to powering GPUs and less to cooling infrastructure, we achieve massive cost reductions and profound environmental benefits.

North Dakota’s climate helps, too. When ambient air temperature is near or below freezing for much of the year, you can leverage free cooling far more effectively than in warmer climates. We’re using nature’s air conditioning. This is engineered intelligence meeting environmental responsibility.

This principle extends beyond North Dakota. Site selection is fundamentally about choosing the right place for the right resources available. In Ellendale, we had stranded power and limited water, so we built waterless infrastructure. But in other regions where water is abundant and power is constrained, the equation could shift. Stranded water? A viable and sustainable strategy could be to use it and reduce energy consumption through evaporative cooling. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. True sustainability means understanding what each location offers and designing accordingly.

Sustainability Beyond the Metrics

When the industry discusses sustainability, the conversation often begins and ends with PUE and WUE. Those metrics matter, and we must push them as hard as we can. But they’re not the whole story.

Real sustainability is about the total impact on the systems we touch — environmental, economic and social. We want to make the communities where we build better because we’re there.

Consider Ellendale. When we arrived, this community of 1,100 had faced economic headwinds for decades. School enrollment had declined. Young families were relocating. Local businesses were closing. The tax base had contracted.

Today, Ellendale is experiencing a resurgence. Our campus generates significant revenue for the city, county, and school district. These tax dollars translate into better infrastructure without burdening residents. The town now has four restaurants. Dozens of new houses are being built through partnerships like the R_WISH program, which is helping construct 48 new homes. Healthcare options are improving. People who grew up there but left due to a lack of opportunities are moving back to raise families.

This is sustainability that cannot be captured in a PUE calculation. It’s measured by whether kids can grow up in their hometowns rather than being forced to leave. Whether local businesses can thrive. Whether a fading community can find new vitality.

The jobs we create are directly meaningful and intentionally right-sized. If we created 15,000 jobs in a town of 1,000 people, we’d overwhelm the town, diluting what makes it special. Instead, we create a few hundred well-paying positions, enough to make a real difference without fundamentally changing the community’s character. It’s infrastructure that strengthens, rather than stresses, the systems it touches.

Doing Things the Right Way

As AI infrastructure developers, as technology leaders, and as members of these communities, we have a responsibility to set a new benchmark for how the industry evolves.

We can’t control everything. However, we can control the percentage of our total power consumption that goes to computing work versus being lost to inefficiency. We can decide whether to use water. We can control whether we build in a way that stresses communities or strengthens them.

For everything we can control, we try to do it the right way. We strive to minimize PUE. We design for zero water consumption in areas with limited water resources. We engage deeply with communities and ensure our presence lifts everyone. This is disciplined execution meeting pioneering spirit — the courage to build where others won’t, combined with the rigor to build better than anyone else.

This matters beyond just Applied Digital. Companies that cut corners create complications and a bad reputation for our industry. When a data center impacts local water availability or power reliability, communities naturally become more cautious about similar projects. When companies make promises they fail to keep, it erodes the trust that affects everyone trying to build in those regions.

The more of us who operate with integrity and a sustainability-first mindset, the better it is for the entire industry. I consider Applied Digital a pioneer in these approaches, and we aim to blaze a trail that others will follow.

As AI continues to grow, we will need hundreds of gigawatts of new capacity in the next decade, far more than the entire U.S. data center footprint built over the past thirty years.

Traditional infrastructure development, reliant on intensive water use, inefficient power consumption, and urban concentration, carries considerable environmental and social costs, and it simply can’t support the AI demands of today, and certainly not for the future.

A New Blueprint for Technology and Community

For decades, America’s heartland has been left behind by technological progress. Small towns watched as jobs migrated to tech hubs, while their own economies struggled. These communities possessed valuable assets in land, energy resources, and infrastructure, but lacked industries that could transform those resources into local prosperity. The digital revolution created wealth and opportunity, but it concentrated in coastal cities and major metropolitan areas, bypassing the very communities whose resources helped make it possible.

What we’re doing flips that script. For the first time, America’s heartland is at the epicenter of AI and at the forefront of the most advanced technology being deployed anywhere in the world. Ellendale isn’t trailing Silicon Valley; it’s hosting infrastructure that AI companies need and can’t build anywhere else. These small towns may now be the first to get purpose-built AI factories designed for the age of intelligence.

And it’s enriching these communities in ways that go far beyond economics. There’s pride in being part of something cutting-edge. There’s excitement about what’s possible. There’s hope for a future in which the next generation chooses to stay rather than being forced to leave.

Rooted in my personal understanding of small-town life, our mission is built on genuine respect for these communities.

Sustainability is embedded throughout the Polaris Forge approach through responsible design that pairs execution speed with ethical engineering. The philosophy prioritizes long-term value over short-term convenience, ensuring every decision reflects disciplined execution and environmental responsibility. By minimizing impact while maximizing local economic benefit, Applied Digital builds infrastructure that strengthens rather than strains communities, transforming regional resources into economic opportunity in a responsible manner. Ultimately, the Polaris Forge philosophy demonstrates that speed, sustainability and community benefit can coexist, creating infrastructure that serves not just technology but responsible progress with a vision for the future.

This is the future of AI infrastructure development.

But it requires thinking differently. It requires being willing to build in places that aren’t on the radar. It requires deep respect for communities and commitment to doing right by them. It requires technical sophistication. And it requires understanding that the most environmentally responsible approach can also be the most economically successful; that sustainability and performance, when properly engineered, are one and the same.

That’s what we’re proving at Applied Digital, every day. Small towns with big impact. AI factories built with the support of communities that are finally getting their fair share of the technological future.