Aligned Data Centers is planning a new campus outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

First reported by BizJournals, Aligned is planning to develop two natural gas-powered data center buildings within the 660-acre Shippingport Industrial Park, which is owned by the Frontier Group of Companies.

According to the publication, construction on the $10 billion project could start later this year.

"We are very excited about the prospect of joining the Shippingport community," a spokesperson from Aligned told BJ. "We are working closely and transparently with all appropriate local bodies and city officials to ensure our proposed project aligns with the community’s vision and requirements. Our goal is to be a great neighbor for years to come. If this project moves forward, we look forward to bringing high-quality jobs and significant economic opportunities to the area. We are committed to a collaborative process and hold a deep respect for the local community and its needs."

Shippingport, in Beaver County, is located some 30 miles (48.2km) northwest of Pittsburgh, close to the state borders with West Virginia and Ohio.

The council of the Borough of Shippingport held a public hearing last week to discuss conditional use requests from Aligned. Council documents suggest the proposed campus is known as Project Phoenix. The council approved the use permit.

The Shippingport Industrial Park was previously home to the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant. Owned and operated by FirstEnergy (later Energy Harbor Corp), the 2.49GW coal plant launched in 1976 and shut down in 2019. Frontier Group bought the site in 2022 from Energy Harbor and last year said it would be developing a 2.7GW natural gas plant at the site, served by EQT Corporation and National Fuel Gas Company. In total, Frontier said the site will be able to offer up to 3.6GW of behind-the-meter capacity.

According to BizJournal, Aligned’s buildings will not initially be powered by the new natural gas plant, but instead by a separate National Fuel Gas line.

Founded in 2001, Frontier is a brownfield development company specializing in acquiring industrial facilities and brownfield sites for reuse. Aligned has previously partnered with the Frontier Group for one of several data center projects in Ohio.

Aligned has campuses in Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; Phoenix, Arizona; and Northern Virginia. The company has further sites in development in Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, and Virginia.

Macquarie Asset Management sold Aligned to a consortium comprising the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), MGX, and BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) last year for $40bn.

Blockchain company Standard Power was previously set to develop a cryptomine data center at Energy Harbor’s Beaver Valley nuclear facility in Shippingport. Meta has since signed a PPA to offtake from the 980MW nuclear plant.