Alignment Engine, a company with ties to the Canton area, has proposed a data center in Chillicothe.

The company was incorporated in 2023 with a Jackson Township address. Its LinkedIn page states that "Alignment Engine builds dedicated, high-performance AI infrastructure for the workloads other clouds can't reliably run."

Late last month, the publicly traded Volato Group Inc. — an artificial intelligence company focused on aviation industry operations — announced a planned merger with Alignment Engine. The deal values Alignment Engine at about $500 million.

"Our headquarters and R&D lab remain in the Canton, Ohio area, and we're proud to maintain strong roots in Northeast Ohio," Amanda McConnell, vice president of operations, said in an email. "As the company has grown, Canton has remained an important part of our identity and operations."

McConnell described Alignment Engine as a high-performance computing infrastructure company supporting artificial intelligence, machine learning and other advanced computing. She declined to comment further, citing the pending merger.

David Stanfill with Alignment Engine presented data center plans at a Sept. 8 meeting with Chillicothe City Council and area residents. He said the center would use 89 megawatts of power, less than the former paper mill at the Chilpaco building.

"This is an industrial site that's already here," Stanfill said. "We're taking that industrial site, we're putting it back into productive use in a number of different industries."

Alignment Engine leases about 6.5 acres from U.S. Paper Mill Co. at the former Chilpaco building, with future plans to bring other industries to the complex.

The company has already posted available data center jobs online. There are 240 jobs listed across 73 positions, with salaries reaching the six-figure mark.

Water is expected to come from existing mill wells and local waterways, if needed. Stanfill said the water will only contact stainless steel and will be recycled on site or treated and discharged into Paint Creek.

The city has a temporary moratorium on data center construction that lasts until Oct. 23.

Reach Kelly at 330-580-8323 or [email protected]

Shelby Reeves with the Chillicothe Gazette contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Stark County's Alignment Engine proposes data center in Chillicothe