South Dakota Representative Dusty Johnson held a roundtable with AI experts from across both the Dakotas Tuesday in Aberdeen.
The talk focused on the need for the United States to win the AI battle, specifically against China and South Dakota’s role in that victory.
Johnson explained…
Joining Johnson for the roundtable included Scott Sandal with Sunbird Software, Dr. Brent Van Aarstan with Dakota State Univeristy MadLabs, Bleau LaFave with Northwestern Energy and Wes Cummins with Applied Digital.
Sandal said the industry deals in yottabytes of data and the question is will there be the electricity necessary to handle that load of data…
Dr. Van Aarstan said South Dakota is capable of hosting such data centers both in infrastructure and people…
A common concern regarding large data centers is the resources they consume to run super computers. LaFave with Northwestern Energy claims rates do not go up for individual electric consumers because providers contract out with the companies themselves…
Cummins says this is the first time in history major computer infrastructure can be housed in rural parts of the country…
A hinderance to many data centers considering South Dakota as a home location is due to the sales tax the state applies on IT equipment. These pieces of equipment costs millions of dollars and must be purchased by the company every 14 to 15 years or so. Johnson explains South Dakota being behind the curve…
Johnson is running for the GOP nomination to be the next Governor of South Dakota. One of his challengers, businessman Toby Doeden, has said no taxpayer money should go to these centers and that they change the makeup of South Dakota.
Johnson says that is anti-investment thinking…
