Second Certified Data Center Announced For Mason County

Gov. Patrick Morrisey told the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s 2026 Business Summit Thursday that Starwood Digital Ventures has received a high impact data center certification from the state.  

He said the global private investment firm will invest $12 billion to develop Project Tamarack. 

Morrisey noted that Tamarack will boast a closed-loop cooling system to minimize water use and addressed another of the public’s concerns over data center development in the state.  
 

“Starwood’s going to fund the project’s infrastructure costs rather than pass them on to West Virginia rate payers,” he said. “Let me be clear: West Virginia electricity bills are not going up from these announcements. Period.” 

Project Tamarack now becomes the sixth large-scale data center confirmed to be in development in West Virginia. 

Fellow Mason County data center developer Nscale has also been granted high impact data center certification for its Monarch Compute Campus. 

Less than a week after a $45 billion deal with Anthropic was announced, Morrisey also announced Thursday that Monarch’s total client investment has risen to $69.2 billion. However he did not disclose what company, or companies, had purchased the additional $24.2 billion of computing capacity. 

“The project’s going to require two gigawatts of power, and it’s expected to support approximately 4,375 construction jobs and 645 permanent jobs,” Morrisey said. “Once again, Nscale will use a closed-loop water system to minimize water use, and its power infrastructure costs will not be passed on to West Virginia ratepayers. Think about that. Two major announcements today, and the water is going to be protected, and your rates are going to be protected. Very important for West Virginia’s future.” 

Nscale’s original estimates had placed minimum power requirements at 1.3 gigawatts, with the option to scale up as high as 8 gigawatts. 

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.