Rotary talks AI data centers in South Dakota
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Rather than fearing artificial intelligence, a group of local leaders is embracing AI.
The Sioux Falls Downtown Rotary Club is looking to the future, which includes the possibility of South Dakota becoming a new hub for AI data centers.
“I think some of our rural, smaller communities that are bedroom communities are just outside of Sioux Falls. They would really help from an economic development and growth perspective.” said Ryan Punt, CEO of SDN Communications
With wide open spaces, abundant wind energy and lots of land, supporters say South Dakota checks all the boxes.
But, rotarians say the only thing South Dakota doesn’t have is incentives.
“There’s 36 states in the United States that have incentives to attract data centers, to move into them,” said Nick Phillips, EVP of External Affairs at Applied Digital. “The reason for that is those high quality jobs and the investment and the other things that go into having those facilities in South Dakota doesn’t yet have a program like that that would work for data centers like us and we’re currently working with the governor’s office and some legislators to hopefully change that.”
Monday’s presentation emphasized building partnerships with local schools and colleges to create courses to make jobs right out of high school.
“What we’re looking to do is advance in terms of like CTE, CTE courses, so we can start a high school level, push that up to tech college just to emphasize on what data center their specialties actually are,” said Scott Sandal, vice president at Sunbird Software.
“There’s a few benefits for having facilities such as ours, locating in South Dakota,” Phillips said, “One of them is high quality jobs. So a couple hundred jobs that are high paying and, you know, high skilled workers that we would retrain into those are really good.”
Local leaders say this is just the beginning of the conversation, but it is a possibility that in the future, South Dakota may have an AI data center.
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