Data Centers Could Ruin What Makes Montana Beautiful

AI has been a hot topic for the past year as its reach continues to expand. Rather than just generating your WRIT101 essay, it’s being used increasingly in medicine, materials science and for creating videos and images. 

The growing demand for AI has sparked the development of new data centers: warehouses packed with online storage servers that consume staggering amounts of energy. 

According to a March 26 Utility Dive article, data center use has grown by 25 percent annually since 2020.

Over the past couple of years, NorthWestern Energy — Montana’s largest electricity supplier — has partnered with companies like Quantica and Sabey Electricity and Data to build data centers near Butte, Great Falls and Billings, according to a Feb. 23 Missoulian article.

If more AI data centers are built in Montana, it could have disastrous effects on the state’s resources, resulting in higher electricity costs, reduced water quality and increased CO2 emissions.

The Water Policy Interim Committee (WPIC), a Montana legislative committee that advises water regulation, met in Helena on Jan. 12 to discuss these problems. 

At the meeting, Director of the Montana Water Center Stephanie Ewing voiced concern about AI’s energy demand. 

“The amount of power demand that these things have is huge,” she said. “A single data center will use the power of a small city.”

The Montana Water Center is an MSU-based group that uses scientific research to solve contemporary water issues, according to its website.

Some proposals for new data centers in the state would require up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity — more power than all of NorthWestern’s current Montana customers use, according to a Montana Environmental Information Center (MEIC) article.

At the Jan. 12 meeting, Pace Ralli, the vice president of project development for Beowulf Electricity and Data — the company that built the Big Horn Data center near Hardin in 2020 — assured the WPIC that these newer data centers wouldn’t be as water-demanding. 

“[They are] a closed-loop system, and therefore it’s just a one-time startup fill of the cooling system,” he said. “Because that system is sealed, it does not consume or discharge water during standard operation.”

In an interview with the Exponent on April 2, Executive Director of the MEIC Anne Hedges pushed back against this claim.

“I’m very concerned about water,” she said. “Even in a closed-loop system, these systems use water, and the lack of transparency about how much water they’re going to use and need and where they’re going to get it is very concerning.” 

Hedges also expressed concern about the disposal of the water after use, as it could contain harmful chemicals.

“If they’re disposing of their water regularly, and they do absolutely have to dispose of water periodically, that water has been used for coolants in their electronic systems to keep these chips cool so they can actually work,” she said. 

The corporations pushing for these centers aren’t being transparent with the public, according to a 2025 study by the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program that analyzed the rhetoric being used by big tech.

The study claims that if utility companies like NorthWestern convince Public Utility Commissions to support data centers, they will force residents to foot the bill, as NorthWestern is Montana’s largest electricity supplier. 

“We are carrying the bulk of the burden for electricity,” Hedges said. “[Utility companies] are just hoping that nobody’s paying attention.”

More AI centers will create far more drawbacks than benefits. As Montanans, we cannot allow water and energy to be stolen from our state.