A former Trump official wants to build a massive data center in a remote corner of Greenland. Will it work?

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A former official of U.S. President Donald Trump’s first administration is planning a multi-billion-dollar data center project in a remote corner of Greenland, as hyperscalers scramble to build out capacity across the globe to keep up with the AI rollout.

The data center is aiming to be operational at 300 megawatts (MW) by mid-2027, before further expansion would see it hit 1.5 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2028.

While that’s currently several times the power capacity of any active data center in the world, there are plans to build multiple 1 GW-plus facilities across the globe over the next two years as the race to develop AI infrastructure continues to gather pace.

The Greenland data center project will cost billions of dollars to complete and has binding commitments with investors to finance half of its initial phase of development and half of the final phase, Drew Horn, a senior aide to Trump’s first-term vice president Mike Pence and CEO of GreenMet, a company that’s offering strategic support to the project, told CNBC.