University of Alabama High Performance Computing and Data Center

Timeline from the record

Newest first. Record entries come from the filings and reports the registry cites. Coverage entries are headlines from publisher feeds we monitor daily, linked to the outlet; last checked September 14, 2026.

1. November 2024

   Under construction
   UA Board of Trustees gave Stage IV approval on 12 November 2024; "Construction can begin" with completion projected for "late 2026". Source: University of Alabama News

Opposition and litigation at this site

Nothing on record as of October 18, 2026. No lawsuit, organized opposition, or contested hearing over University of Alabama High Performance Computing and Data Center in Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama appears in the sources this registry tracks. That is an absence in our sources rather than a finding that none exists, and local opposition often predates any coverage a national dataset would pick up.

If you live near this site and something is happening that this page does not show, that is worth telling us. Send us the document and it goes in the record with the source attached. For sites where opposition is already established, see every contested site we track.

Power and water

The site was chosen for proximity to Alabama Power high-voltage transmission lines, which also serve a nearby hospital and are prioritised for restoration in a major outage; the project includes a 22,500 gsf electrical substation yard.

The project scope includes a dedicated chiller plant adjacent to the new building. As of October 2026, neither the university's project page nor its HPC center About page, which lists "Air and water cooling", states how heat is rejected, so the cooling type is recorded as unknown.

Public money on the record

Notes on the record

University research computing facility on the eastern edge of the Tuscaloosa campus, not a commercial colocation or hyperscale site. UA states verbatim: "The facility's 40,000 square feet will allow for a substantial increase in UA's computing power" and "an estimated $25 million of computing power"; it will host a "petascale computing system, meaning it will be capable of performing quadrillions of calculations per second" and be the "only system in Alabama to meet the benchmarks for the Top500 list". The University of Alabama News article names a U.S. Department of Commerce NIST disbursement plus an Alabama Education Trust Fund appropriation approved by the legislature and Gov. Ivey in 2023, but states no dollar totals for either. The university's Building Bama project page lists a "BOT Budget $96,000,000" with funding sources "Federal NIST Grant (2023-NIST-CICGP-01) : $44,550,000", "State Appropriation (Act #2023-378/SB-87) : $46,000,000" and "UA Central Reserves : $5,450,000"; the $96 million budget is recorded as the investment figure. The $25M is computing equipment, not construction investment, and is not used as the investment figure. No MW figure appears in the University of Alabama News article. The planned capacity is from the university's HPC center About page, which states "The building is master-planned for 14.6 MW of computing power" and lists "5 mW+ of HPC power available, scalable to 16 mW+". Status is recorded as under construction because completion was projected for "late 2026"; as of September 2026 that window was open and completion was unconfirmed. Coordinates are the campus centroid, not the building on the eastern edge of campus.

Other sites within 30 miles

Distances are between recorded coordinates, many of which are a city or county centroid, so treat them as approximate. Cumulative load on one utility and one aquifer is the question a planning commission rarely asks.

• Applied Digital Delta Forge 2 (Brookwood AI Factory Campus) · Brookwood · Applied Digital13 mi · Proposed · 210 MW · Mixed reception
• Project Brookwood Data Center Campus · Brookwood · Youngwoo & Associates15 mi · Permitted

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