NScale's Monarch LDC In West Virginia -- Huge -- 8+ GW -- How Does It Compare To META's In Mississippi And Musk's In Memphis? How Big Is This? CAT Jumps $27 -- New 52-Week High -- April 23, 2026

While Maine, North Dakota, perhaps Texas are cutting back on LCD approvals, West Virginia? "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."

Disclaimer: in a long note like this there will be typographical and content errors. I often misread things. 

LDCs are tracked here. 

• Data Center Map, link here.

Locator: 50596CAT.
Locator: 50596LDC
Locator: 50596THEDRAGONSLAYER.

For me personally, this may be the biggest story of the year in the AI arena. Again, see the blog's disclaimer. This is for the extended family; this is not for general readership. 

Click on Disclaimer.

See also RBN Energy today at this post.

How big is it?

You can ask the question (I have) but nothing in the rest of the world (outside of the US) begins to remotely compare with Monarch.

Who or what is Nscale?

Ticker CAT: 

St George's Day -- The Day The Brits Slew Musk And Meta -- Combined! Damn The Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead -- April 23, 2026

Locator: 50595B.

WTI: $93.48. StanChart: $95 is the new price equilibrium.

New wells reporting:

• Friday, April 24, 2026: 80 for the month, 80 for the quarter, 237 for the year,
  42184, conf, BR, Omlid 6-8-7 MBH, 
• 41862, conf, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 4H, 
• 41362, conf, Devon Enegy, Marvin 27-34 5H, 
• 41361, conf, Devon Energy, Marvin 27-34 4H, 
• 41095, conf, Enerplus, Lind 145-97-2-11-4H, 
• 41094, conf, Enerplus, Lind 145-97-2-11-3H, 
• 41093, conf, Enerplus, Lind 145-97-2-11-2H-WLL,
• Thursday, April 23, 2026: 73 for the month, 73 for the quarter, 230 for the year, 
• 41388, conf, Hess, BW-Barbara Ann-LE-149-100-1705H-1, 
• 41793, conf, XTO, GBU Apollo Federal 14X-12D-N,

RBN Energy: Nscale's Monarch data center aims to optimize the BTU-to-GPU value chain. Link here. Archived. See this post to put this LDC in perspective. While Maine, North Dakota, perhaps Texas are cutting back on LCD approvals, West Virginia? "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."

The rapid expansion of data centers and AI applications is one of the biggest stories in the energy sector and the Monarch Compute Campus, which is beginning to take shape in West Virginia, figures to be one of the most interesting sites coming online and could be a compelling test case for future development. In today’s RBN blog, we explore the Monarch project, a massive data center with on-site power generation that seeks to optimize the Btu-to-GPU value chain through upstream access to Appalachian natural gas, creation of the nation’s first state-certified microgrid, and a modular approach to development.

Let’s start with the basics. London-based Nscale, which builds, owns and operates data centers, announced March 16 that it had acquired American Intelligence & Power Corp. (AIP), which was established earlier this year by 8090 Industries and our friends at Fidelis New Energy. Since AIP owned the Monarch campus, Nscale’s acquisition included that site. Nscale also said the same day that it had signed a letter of intent to provide 1.35 gigawatts (GW) of compute capacity to Microsoft, setting up the campus as a flagship development of Nvidia’s next-generation Vera Rubin AI platform. We’ll touch on more details about the campus later, but construction is expected to start soon with operations beginning in H2 2027. Should the site expand as planned, it would reach 8.1 GW of capacity by 2031.

As we noted in Win, Lose or Draw, numerous factors go into deciding where to build a data center, and each location has its own strengths and weaknesses. While West Virginia has not seen a rapid buildout of data centers, especially compared to neighboring Virginia (home to at least 100 hyperscale facilities), the Monarch campus (see Figure 1 below) was especially attractive to Nscale primarily because of its size, scale and potential. 

Figure 1. The Monarch Compute Campus. Source: Nscale