WARREN, Ohio – A global technology company based in Singapore says plans to commission a former electrical plant site in Weathersfield Township are on track for 2029.
However, it’s still unclear as to what precisely the site would be used for.
Haris Basit, chief strategy officer for Bitdeer Technologies Group, said during a conference call with investors that the company plans to secure 300 megawatts of power for the project site – nearly 42 acres at the former Niles electrical generating plant.
“The site spans 41.8 acres and includes an interconnection agreement with FirstEnergy,” Basit told investors in November during a call to discuss the company’s third quarter earnings. “It is located about 75 miles from our Massillon, Ohio, site and 125 miles from our Clarington, Ohio, site. We continue to secure low-cost power sites globally, reinforcing our competitive advantage in both mining and AI infrastructure,” he said.
The Weathersfield site is on track for “energization” during the first quarter of 2029, Basit said.
Bitdeer’s Weathersfield site would be the company’s fourth-largest project in terms of power capacity, according to Bitdeer’s portfolio projects.
However, local officials have remained in the dark about the project’s details since The Business Journal first reported in May that Bitdeer subsidiary Whitetail Creek LLC had acquired the property.
“We’ve heard nothing at all, no conversations, and we’ve reached out to them,” said Richard Harkins, Weathersfield Township trustee. “At this point they’re keeping it hush-hush. They’ve been really tight-lipped about it.”
Bitdeer acquired the land at 1047 Belmont Ave. for $3.4 million May 5, according to records filed with the Trumbull County Auditor’s office. The property was purchased from Akron-based Magellan Scientific LLC, which had acquired the property March 31 for $4.2 million.
Blue utility flags marking waterlines were visible along the west side of Belmont Avenue near the site Dec. 10. Yellow utility flags were also planted along the entranceway leading into the power plant site, identifying natural gas lines on the property.
Generally, these markers are put in place to alert contractors as to the location of utility lines so they are not punctured or disrupted during an excavation project.
Both the water and gas lines are located in the city of Niles, while the power plant land is situated in Weathersfield.
Meanwhile, trailers and pickup trucks were visible at the site Dec. 10, signaling some type of activity there.
The Business Journal has reached out to Bitdeer for additional details regarding the project. The company had not responded by the time of this posting.
The Niles Generating facility – once a coal-burning Ohio Edison plant built in 1953 – closed in 2013 after 60 years of operation. The building and stacks were demolished in April 2022, clearing the land for future development. Electrical transformers and infrastructure are still present at the site.
To date, Bitdeer manages eight data operations worldwide, with a total capacity of 1.6 gigawatts. The locations include Rockdale, Texas; Knoxville, Tenn.; Wenatchee, Wash.; Molde and Tydal, Norway; Gedu and Jigmeling, Bhutan; and Oromia Region, Ethiopia.
Six additional locations or expansions, including Weathersfield, are in development, according to the company’s October 2025 production and operations update. These sites include operations in Massillon and Clarington, Ohio; Rockdale, Texas; Alberta, Canada; and Oromia Region.
The expansions would bring the company to nearly 3 gigawatts of capacity.
“In Q3, we continued our rapid buildout of our global power and data center portfolio,” Basit said during the November call with analysts. “For our AI cloud services and co-location strategy, we believe we have one of the most attractive power portfolios in the industry.”
Bitdeer’s Clarington facility in Monroe County, Ohio, for example, is a 570-megawatt data center directed to support cryptocurrency mining, high-performance computing and AI. That campus is expected to be at full capacity by the second quarter of 2027.
Massillon’s 227-megawatt campus was initially planned to come online during the second quarter of 2026, but that might be delayed because of a fire that broke out at the site last month. The fire damaged two of the 26 buildings now under construction there.
And on Dec. 4, investors filed a class-action lawsuit against Bitdeer in the Southern District of New York, claiming it misled investors about the development and timeline of its ASIC chip, the SEAL04. The chip is a major component to Bitdeer’s Sealminer A4 bitcoin mining computer.
Bitdeer had initially planned to produce the chip during the second quarter of 2025. On Nov. 10, however, the company announced that it would begin manufacturing a first generation version during the first quarter of 2026, while the second generation design would be “significantly delayed.” Bitdeer’s stock dipped significantly in the days following the announcement, plummeting 33% between Nov. 10 and Dec. 10.
Bitdeer announced a net loss of $266 million during the third quarter.