Vineland, New Jersey is not exactly known for making headlines. But the city’s building officials have now handed Nebius and its partner DataOne a second stop-construction order at their AI data center site, this time over the installation of Bloom Energy fuel cells without the required permits. For a project that carries billions in contracts and considerable strategic weight for Nebius’s US expansion, the regulatory friction is becoming a pattern rather than a one-off.
The latest order specifically targets the fuel cell installation and a related LNG tank, both of which are still awaiting the necessary approvals from local authorities. Construction can continue in other areas, but the core power generation infrastructure is now frozen until the permitting issues get resolved.
A big project with a growing list of complications
The Vineland facility is designed to deliver up to 300 megawatts of AI computing capacity. The financial stakes are equally significant. Nebius announced a master services agreement valued at $2.6 billion in May 2026, tied to providing dedicated AI computational resources to Microsoft. That contract sits within a broader relationship between the two companies reported to be worth over $17 billion.
