Digi Power X Lawsuits: The Three Mile Noise Class Action Over a Crypto Mine Becoming an AI Data Center

The building at 1070 Erie Avenue was a gas-fired peaker plant, the kind of facility that runs a few hundred hours a year when the grid is stressed. Digi Power X, then operating as Digihost, bought it in early 2021 and filled it with mining computers, which turned an occasional machine into a continuous one. According to the complaint, the noise began in September 2022 and has not stopped: loud, droning, and persistent, with a low-frequency component residents describe as vibration inside their homes. The suit pleads private nuisance, public nuisance, negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The company did not comment when the case was filed, and none of the allegations has been tested in court.

That business model is the operator's own description of itself. Digi Power X presents its power generation as the point rather than an input, calling itself a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company that owns and operates generation, data centers, and GPU compute capacity, and citing the North Tonawanda plant at 60 megawatts as the cost foundation of the rest. For neighbors, an operator that owns its own generation is an operator with fewer external constraints on when it runs. Our full report on Demers v. Digi Power X covers the complaint in detail.

Two features of this case make Digi Power X the defendant that other operators are watching. The first is the radius. The Michigan, New Jersey, and Wisconsin noise classes claim one to 1.5 miles. This one claims three, retroactive to 2021, on the theory that low-frequency noise carries far beyond what the A-weighted decibel readings in most ordinances capture. The second is the remedy. Medical monitoring is borrowed from toxic exposure litigation, where courts have ordered defendants to fund screening before disease appears. Asking for it in a noise case treats years of disrupted sleep as an exposure. Whether New York law allows either at this scale is unsettled, and the ruling will be cited in every noise case that follows.

Then there is the conversion. Digi Power X has been public about moving the site from bitcoin mining to AI computing, and AI workloads need at least as much cooling as mining does. The case is, in effect, a suit against an AI data center filed before the facility finished becoming one, which is why the crypto docket keeps generating the doctrine that AI campus neighbors will use. The same pattern runs through the Granbury, Texas cases and the Dowagiac, Michigan class action. Our noise lawsuit guide explains how these claims are built, our New York page covers the state's moratorium on new hyperscale permits, and our free case review connects you with an independent attorney in our network who handles data center cases in your state, at no cost and with no obligation.