Matt Kunz, vice president and general manager at Turner, said the project will help Vantage “meet the need for the increased demand for scalable and sustainable digital infrastructure in the region.”

The first data center building is slated to open in 2025, followed by the other two through 2028. Vantage says the facilities were designed to achieve LEED Silver certification. 

Vantage emphasizes that power for the data center campus will be provided by AEP Ohio. Its project comes as the utility is seeking approval from state regulators to add tariffs on large data centers in order to ensure it can cover the costs of needed infrastructure to serve a slate of data center projects in varying stages of planning, design and construction in the New Albany area. 

A proposal filed by AEP Ohio in October would require large data center owners to pay for at least 85% of the energy they say they’ll need each month, even if they end up using less. An alternate proposal filed by data center owners would cap the minimum payments at 75%. 

That hasn’t slowed data center owners developing projects in the region. “Ohio is a strategic market for us and our hyperscale customers,” said Dana Adams, North America president at Vantage, in a statement. And Microsoft also recently announced plans to spend $1 billion building three data center campuses, including one in New Albany and others within the same county in Hebron and Heath. 

Cloud computing and artificial intelligence have been driving demand for data centers. The primary market supply grew 26% year-over-year in 2023 to 5,174.1 MW, and an all-time high of 3,077.8 MW was under construction in primary markets, according to a report from real estate firm CBRE Group. The Columbus/New Albany market offers owners competitive power and land costs, according to the report.