Mason County Data Center Reportedly Nets Muli-Billion Dollar Client

Anthropic, creator of Claude AI, has agreed to spend $45 billion over six years for computing capacity at the Monarch Compute Campus north of Point Pleasant. 

According to reporting from Bloomberg Thursday, Anthropic’s commitment represents about 460 megawatts of power. That’s roughly a third of the 1.3-gigawatt on-site capacity – equal to the output of the nearby Mountaineer Power Plant – that Nscale plans when it opens the campus next year.  

The development group in charge of the Monarch Compute Campus has said the site could expand its capacity to up to 8 gigawatts. 

In March Nscale announced it had signed a letter of intent to provide the full 1.35 gigawatts of AI compute capacity to Microsoft. Semafor reported Friday that Google has also entered into talks with Nscale.  

“Microsoft walked away over the summer amid a review of its data center portfolio and its share of on-site power generation, while the Google deal didn’t work out for reasons stemming from an internal review of the tech giant’s computing needs and capex management,” J.D. Capelouto of Semafor reported. 

In a press release Gov. Patrick Morrisey called the multibillion-dollar agreement “an extraordinary vote of confidence in our state and the strategy we put in place.” 

Morrisey’s 50 by 50 energy strategy seeks to expand West Virginia’s power generation capacity to 50 gigawatts by 2050, providing the reliable energy needed to support artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and other rapidly growing industries. 

The governor championed efforts to provide regulatory and siting certainty for developments involving billions of dollars in private capital and hundreds of megawatts of power. 

Passed in 2025, House Bill 2014 allows data centers to establish microgrids and prevents any local control like municipal zoning or noise ordinances.   

The legislation also includes protections designed to prevent the infrastructure costs associated with these developments from being shifted onto existing residential and business ratepayers.  

Under the law, 50% of revenue generated through the state’s microgrid framework is dedicated to reducing and ultimately eliminating the state income tax, with additional revenue directed to host counties and communities across West Virginia as well as infrastructure improvements. 

“This is bigger than one project,” Morrisey said. “We are building an ecosystem where energy production, artificial intelligence, advanced computing and manufacturing can grow together. We said West Virginia intended to compete at the highest level for the industries of the future. Today, the world is seeing what that means.” 

Across West Virginia, at least five large-scale data centers are in various stages of development, but the 2,000-acre Monarch Compute Campus is the first to break ground. 

The construction has not been without issues. A neighboring development has been flooded twice by stormwater runoff from the construction, prompting state intervention. Many homeowners are choosing to leave the community rather than live next to the data centers.