Plans for cryptomining data center firm Digi Power X to convert a facility outside Buffalo, New York, into an AI data center have been impacted by a local data center moratorium.
First reported by local press, including BuffaloNews, WIVB, and WKBW, Digi Power X this month filed with the North Tonawanda planning commission to allow the company to convert its existing cryptomine site into an AI facility.
However, the city of North Tonawanda this month officially extended its moratorium on cryptomines and data centers for another year, halting Digi Power’s plans.
Digi Power X has been operating the Fortistar gas power plant – at 1070 Erie Ave in North Tonawanda – since around 2021. The site offers around 60MW, which to date the company has been using to mine crypto, with the potential to add another 60MW.
According to local press, the company had already started removing containers hosting ASIC mining hardware. The company aims to develop a two-story building totaling 80,000 sq ft (7,432 sqm) on the site that would use a closed-loop cooling system.
North Tonawanda is a city in Niagara County, located between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
The city introduced a two-year ban on new cryptomining data centers in 2024, partly as a result of local unrest over noise from Digi Power’s site.
At the state level, New York lawmakers passed a bill earlier this month to introduce a state-wide data center moratorium. The bill now goes to New York Governor Kathy Hochul to sign into law or veto
Founded in 2017 and formerly known as Digihost, Digi Power X was previously focused on mining cryptocurrencies and placing mining hardware at power plants for itself and other companies. The company currently has data centers operating in Alabama and New York state, as well as a site under development in North Carolina.
Like many crypto firms, Digi Power X is pivoting to AI, and has signed Cerebras as a customer in Alabama. It is also launching its own GPU-as-a-service offering, known as NeoCloudz.
DigiPower announced plans to acquire $35 million worth of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin GPUs for its cloud platform earlier this month. NeoCloudz currently operates a fleet of Nvidia B200 and B300 GPUs deployed at Digi Power’s Columbiana, Alabama
A former coke coal plant in nearby Tonawanda is also being eyed for a potential data center campus, but those plans are reportedly on hold. Local officials said the developers have paused their application for a 300MW project due to a "backlog" with the New York Independent System Operator.