Oakland University (OU) in Rochester, Michigan, is moving ahead with a data center project.
This week, the university's Board of Trustees voted to move the project into the "due diligence" phase, reports WXYZ.
The data center proposal selected was made by Fairmount Properties, which will be responsible for building and renting out the facility. According to OU officials, the data center will be built and operated at no extra cost to the university.
The project has been in the works since mid-July 2025, when a request for proposals was put out for a data center development on a five-acre site located at 253 Pioneer Drive, Rochester, on the existing parking lot P-35.
The data center has since been relocated to a site adjacent to parking lot 37, amid concern that it was too close to a Native American Heritage Site.
According to the original RFP, the data center would be a "colocation Edge" facility with less than 30MW of capacity. The data center will also be required to include a 1,000 sq ft (93 sqm) office space for OU's AI Institute, and dedicate 2,000 sq ft (186 sqm) to OU's compute infrastructure, which at the time of requesting bids did not exceed 1MW of capacity. The full expected size of the data center has not been stated.
An OU project webpage states that the data center was proposed to "resolve critical technological deficits" and also aims to expand the university's compute capabilities "to support next-generation teaching and research, strengthen data security and compliance, and create new opportunities for students through industry collaboration."
"Currently, OU's computing core is split between aging, fragmented spaces in Dodge Hall and North Foundation Hall. As computing demands across core disciplines continue to rise sharply, this legacy environment presents clear technological limitations that directly impact campus teaching and research," it adds.
According to the shared project timeline, the due diligence phase will be conducted this fall and will cover site, infrastructure, financial, and environmental assessments. The design phase will follow, starting in the summer of 2027, and construction is not expected to begin for at least 18 months after design is completed.
According to DataCenterMap, Michigan has 76 data centers across 12 markets, with the majority in Detroit. Operators include EdgeConneX, US Signal, ManagedWay, 123Net, 365 Data Centers, and Cogent. Rochester lies north of Detroit.