ST. PAUL — At least 13 hyperscale data centers have been proposed across the state of Minnesota. But only one of those projects is underway — a 280-acre development in Rosemount from Meta, Facebook's parent company.

The rest of the proposed projects have been suspended, tangled up in the permitting process or are buried in a pile of shell companies.

Data centers are huge, intensely secured buildings that store and sort all sorts of data, including day-to-day technology such as apps, AI, websites, and cloud storage. Minnesota already has 61 data centers, but a boom of larger data centers, also referred to as “hyperscale data centers,” is raising the eyebrows of both business-hungry and environmentally conscious Minnesotans.

A few data centers have been slowly “suspending” projects thro

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