Hut 8 Logo (CNW Group/Hut 8 Mining Corp)
Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 has broken ground on a massive $2.5 billion artificial intelligence data center in West Feliciana Parish. It will consist of two, 450,000-square-foot buildings, and it will create thousands of direct and indirect jobs. Parish President Kenny Havard says this will be an economic game-changer – not just for the parish, but for the entire region.
“What this is going to do is give us an opportunity to not rely off of rooftops. We can take these dollars and put it back into the community here, into the people here,” Havard said.
As with all data centers, there is concern about the energy that this one will require to operate. Havard says the parish is well-equipped to handle the demand.
“It doesn’t require any new power stations or anything or plants, the original first 300. If it grows beyond that, it could require some of that,” Havard noted.
Havard says furthermore, the state is well-equipped to handle construction of data centers and other facilities that require high energy usage.
“Louisiana’s positioned particularly well because we have natural gas. If we can figure out how the burn natural gas and especially let these folks build their own power plant, they won’t even have to be on the grid,” Havard said.
The first of the two buildings of the Hut 8 data center is expected to be completed by the end of the year; the second is set to be completed by the end of 2026.
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