Nebius Sets October 2027 First Phase For 1.2GW Pennsylvania AI Campus
Data Center Dynamics identified a 260MW first phase for Nebius’ planned Pennsylvania AI cloud campus, with full buildout at 1.2GW and a dedicated PPL Electric Utilities energy-service agreement.
A 260MW first phase is now attached to Nebius’ planned Pennsylvania AI cloud campus, with October 2027 as the operating target and 1.2GW marked for full buildout.
Data Center Dynamics reported the new site details, turning a previously broad May announcement into a power, land, and delivery schedule for the Nasdaq-traded AI cloud provider.
The plan gives Nebius a staged path for US capacity rather than a single headline number.
The campus in Butler Township, Schuylkill County, would start below the 250-350MW year-end 2027 range that chief executive Arkady Volozh provided when the project was first announced, then move toward 660MW by 2029 and more than 1GW after that.
Highridge Business Park Gets A 600-Acre AI Cloud Plan
Nebius’ project page puts the campus inside Highridge Business Park, around 55 miles (89 kms) west of Allentown and near the intersection of Interstate 81 and Gordon Mountain Road.
The site is planned as a purpose-built campus that Nebius would fully own and operate.
The physical plan is large enough to make power delivery the article’s core constraint.
Project materials put the site at roughly 600 acres, and site plans show six single-story buildings.
The first phase is expected to reach 260MW, while the full design reaches 1.2GW.
Local zoning is part of the execution case.
Nebius said the location combines existing infrastructure, available workers, local officials and rules that already allow data-centre development, and presented the project as a long-term partnership with the community.
PPL Agreement Adds A Power Gate To The Buildout
The energy-service agreement with PPL Electric Utilities is the most concrete infrastructure evidence beyond the site boundary.
Nebius has secured a dedicated agreement for the project, giving the campus a named utility counterparty before the first phase comes online.
Nebius said the campus design includes a Battery Energy Storage System meant to keep backup and redundant power available for roughly a 30-minute outage.
Air cooling and liquid cooling are both planned, and closed-loop cooling is meant to reduce water use.
Those design choices do not remove the staged delivery risk.
A 1.2GW campus still has to move from land, utility agreement, and site plans into energized capacity across several years, and the project’s own milestones put most of the power beyond the initial October 2027 phase.
US Expansion Extends Beyond One Pennsylvania Site
The Pennsylvania campus sits inside a broader US buildout.
Nebius is set to lease data centres in Vineland, New Jersey through DataOne and in Kansas City, Missouri through Patmos, while developing owned sites in Independence, Missouri and Birmingham, Alabama.
The customer list already includes Meta, Microsoft, and AI model firm Reflection, providing named demand for AI cloud capacity.
The source record does not assign those customers to the Pennsylvania campus, so the new site should be read as expansion capacity rather than disclosed customer-specific deployment.
Land cost adds another concrete marker.
Data Center Dynamics attributed the $187.5 million May 1 land-closing figure to local press, documenting site acquisition rather than customer demand.
Customer Allocation Remains Outside The Pennsylvania Record
The new Pennsylvania details identify acreage, power phases, utility engagement, cooling design, and a first operating date.
Customer allocation and contracted demand for the 1.2GW campus remain unreported.
