A former Trump administration official is plotting a multi-billion-dollar Arctic data center that would become one of the world's largest AI infrastructure facilities. Drew Horn, CEO of GreenMet and former senior aide to Vice President Mike Pence, told CNBC the Greenland project aims to hit 300 megawatts by mid-2027 before scaling to 1.5 gigawatts by late 2028. But the venture faces a gauntlet of challenges - from securing local permits to navigating the diplomatic minefield created by President Trump's renewed push to acquire the Danish territory.
A massive data center project in one of the world's most remote locations just became the latest flashpoint in the AI infrastructure arms race. Drew Horn, former senior aide to Vice President Mike Pence and CEO of strategic advisory firm GreenMet, is leading a multi-billion-dollar effort to build a 1.5-gigawatt facility on Greenland's southwest coast - a project that would rank among the largest data centers on the planet if completed.
The plan calls for the facility to go live at 300 megawatts by mid-2027, then expand to 1.5 gigawatts by the end of 2028. That's several times larger than any currently operational data center globally, though the target aligns with the wave of gigawatt-scale projects that Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services, and OpenAI are racing to build as AI workloads devour exponentially more computing power.
Horn told CNBC the venture has locked in binding financial commitments - split between debt and equity - to cover half the initial phase and half the final buildout. But those funds are contingent on clearing critical milestones, including securing land rights and permits from Greenland's local government. Construction hasn't started yet, and the project still lacks formal approvals from authorities in Kangerlussuaq, the small settlement at the end of a fjord where the facility would sit.
