Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Dye: Data center development is increasing across Ohio, Minnesota, and the Midwest

AJ Dye · Bridging Investment and Operations: AJ Dye on Scaling Tech with Vertex Innovations and Unifi Ventures · Jun 25, 2025 · at 29:35

AJ Dye, COO of Vertex Innovations, explains how power access and climate factors are driving data center expansion into new geographic regions.

0:00 / 0:17exact quote · 17.4s

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“There are parts of the country like Ohio and Minnesota, And some other areas in the Midwest that are really starting to see a lot more activity as folks are looking for some alternative solutions in the sense that like, hey, this is actually a cost effective place to operate. We've got access to power.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Data center development activity is growing in Midwest locations such as Ohio and Minnesota due to available power and operational cost-effectiveness.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Data center industry reports and state development tracking from JLL, CBRE, Cleanview, and state agencies confirm substantial growth in planned and under-construction data center capacity across Midwest markets, explicitly including Ohio and Minnesota. In Ohio, planned capacity reached over 21 GW alongside major utility load expansions from ~600 MW in 2024 toward 5,000 MW by 2030. In Minnesota, planned pipeline capacity surged past 1,000 to 1,500 MW across numerous hyperscale proposals, facilitated by state legislative incentives in 2025. Industry reports from CBRE, JLL, and ENR explicitly corroborate the stated drivers: grid constraints in Tier 1 markets driving developers to the Midwest for lower operating/energy costs and available power.

JLL Midyear 2026 report identified Ohio as a major frontier market capturing substantial shares of the 66+ GW under construction in North America.
Cleanview project tracking (September 2026) recorded 21,724 MW in planned data center capacity in Ohio and 1,512 MW in planned capacity in Minnesota, representing massive increases over operating baselines.
CBRE (H1 2025) and Fresh Energy (February 2026) documented at least 11 to 12 large-scale/hyperscale data center proposals in Minnesota totaling over 1,100 MW.
CBRE, JLL, and ENR industry analyses confirmed that power availability, faster grid interconnection, and lower operational energy costs in the Midwest drove hyperscaler migration from constrained Tier 1 markets.

Checked against

[1] jll.com [2] cleanview.co [3] electricchoice.com [4] ohiox.org [5] ohiochamberfoundation.com [6] cbre.com [7] fresh-energy.org [8] cleanview.co

data center development Minnesota Minneapolis megawatts CBRE JLL 2024 2025 data center growth Midwest Ohio Minnesota power availability cost CBRE JLL data center report Ohio Minnesota growth megawatts data center construction Ohio Columbus megawatts JLL CBRE 2024 2025

assessed as of 2026-09-02

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Mentioned

data center Midwest Minnesota Ohio

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