New data center planned to replace crypto mining facility in Spartanburg County

SPARTANBURG —A former cryptocurrency mining facility in the Tiger River Industrial Park is being converted into a data center. The company hopes it’s operational by the end of 2027.

BV Power Alpha previously received a fee-in-lieu-of-tax agreement for its crypto mining facility that started up in 2022. The company, owned by Jerry Tang, is now called AIB Data Centers.

In February, Tang abandoned efforts to build a new data center in the Tyger River Industrial Park after Spartanburg County Council declined to offer tax incentives in the wake of community criticism over the project.

Since then, county council passed a data center moratorium that could prevent new data centers that have an IT electrical load of 65 megawatts or more.

Council voted to include the caveat after lobbying from William Crawford, president of Pacolet Milliken, and Bryan Stone, president of Pacolet Milliken subsidiary Lockhart Power, who argued that small data centers create revenue that helps keep costs down for ratepayers.

Pacolet Milliken developed the Tyger River Industrial Park and Lockhart supplies much of the power there.

The new AIB data center will have an electrical load of only 50 megawatts, falling below that 65-megawatt threshold, according to the company. It will buy power from a utility instead of producing it, meaning it won’t create the type of air pollution that the NorthMark data center will generate.