BONNER — Changes may soon come to the Bonner Mill Industrial Park.
The former United Forest Products building along Highway 200 could be home to an artificial intelligence data center.
With many questions about the proposal, community members and the Krambu project team gathered for a meeting Friday afternoon.
"There's an insatiable appetite for these, these types of AI factories," Krambu CEO Steve Wood told MTN.
6 weeks ago, Wood learned of a potential opportunity for his company, Krambu, in Bonner.
Watch MTN's Emily Brown's report here:
Wood says he's hoping to transform the old mill site into an AI data center with a sustainable environmental footprint and bring more jobs to Bonner.
"We're focusing on capturing all the heat and the thermals and liquid and using that in our closed loop system to serve other ecosystems like an aquaponics project or hydroponics or just a greenhouse," Wood explained.
Wood notes the system is a continuous loop of water that will be used to run the center and cool the technology. The goal is to reduce resource usage.
Krambu's version of that system is currently being implemented for the first time in Washington.
"There are other closed loop systems that have been out there, but there isn't anything like what we're building. We're building the next innovation," Wood said.
During Friday's meeting in Bonner, many community members were skeptical about where the water would come from.
"Whatever the water used to supply the sawmill," Wood said.
Total usage is unknown at this time but a figure of 500 gallons per megawatt was proposed during Friday's meeting.
Wastewater treatment would need to be treated on site or in the sewers which is subject to regulations.
"We're gonna comply with all the requirements whatever the county requires us to do," Wood said.
Project details are still up in the air because the size of the facility in megawatts depends on the client Krambu chooses. That process could take a month or more.
"I haven't talked to anybody from Palantir personally. I've talked to somebody else and lots of different other companies. Department of Defense, we're qualified to support and maintain those types of servers and computers and so we could entertain a DOD if that made sense," Wood explained.
Krambu is also working to find a company to provide the power, but Wood says because they'd buy the power from the grid, customer rates would not go up.
Impact to energy bills was another question from the community.
Others wondered about the impact infrasonic waves, or vibrations of 20hz or below. One commenter added that those can do great damage to humans, especially to those within a close proximity.
The data center needs to comply with Missoula County zoning, waste, noise (including vibrations), and environmental regulations before moving forward, all of which are concerns of the public as well.
County Planner Jennie Dixon said the county made specific changes after the former cryptocurrency mine in the area drew complaints.
Missoula County has set up an informational page and space for public comment. Click here to visit their website.
