(BEAVER DAM) Another data center is being proposed for Beaver Dam. The Common Council is scheduled to hear more about it at its meeting Monday, at which Beaver Dam Area Development Corporation Executive Director Trent Campbell is scheduled give a presentation about a company called Oppidan, which is proposing to build a 90,000 square-foot edge data center at the intersection of Highway 151 and Hemlock Road.
Oppidan is a Minnesota-based national property development firm offering comprehensive services, including construction and project management. Oppidan specializes in data centers, retail, industrial, senior housing developments. It has more than 600 projects across 43 states and Canada. Its portfolio is valued at over $5.3 billion.
An edge data center is a small, decentralized facility located near users, device, or data sources. By processing data locally rather than in a distant, central cloud, edge data centers are designed to significantly reduce network latency, decrease bandwidth consumption, and improve application performance for real-time services like AI, IoT, and autonomous vehicles.
There are 47 active data centers in Wisconsin, with several more large-scale projects under construction or proposed. Some small and localized data centers are as small as 5,000 square feet. The Oppidan project would be a lot smaller than the Meta AI data center under construction in Beaver Dam, which is expected to be 700,00 square feet.
Data centers in Beaver Dam and around the world have drawn opposition due to concerns over energy and water usage, noise and air pollution, Critics say owners of data centers benefit from large tax breaks from local governments while creating relatively few jobs.
