Much of the artificial intelligence-driven data center boom has taken place in suburban and rural areas, but one facility in a busy part of downtown Baltimore is now set for a major expansion.

AiNET plans to increase the capacity of its data center at 300 W. Lexington St. over the next several years from 80 to 280 megawatts and add up to 300 more employees to the facility, the Baltimore Business Journal reported Monday.

The report didn't include the square footage being added or the cost of the expansion. AiNET's Palig Kelenjian said in an emailed statement to Bisnow that it has yet to determine the exact cost, but it will be substantial.

"Under traditional Data center build-out guidelines, the investment typically would be $10 million dollars / megawatt or over $2 billion," Kelenjian said. "Using AiNET’s patented and state-of-the-art technology, we believe we can improve on these numbers."

"This upgrade changes everything for AI. No one has enough power," Kelenjian, said in a release.

The facility today spans 200K SF across two mid-rise brick structures with windows sitting next to a subway station. The buildings look different than many of the vast windowless facilities that have characterized the latest wave of data center development.

Construction of data centers has soared over the last two years as Big Tech companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta pour billions into the infrastructure to build out artificial intelligence.

AiNET seeks to capture demand from smaller tech firms and government agencies that don't want to contract their AI data center operations out to the Big Tech companies for security or privacy reasons, its executives told the BBJ. Companies typically own the servers they use within AiNET's facilities.

Baltimore hasn't typically been a major data center hub. It isn't listed as a primary, secondary or emerging market in JLL's latest national data center report. But JLL defines secondary markets as having between 100 MW and 500 MW of capacity, so AiNET's 200 MW expansion alone could bring it up a tier.

The largest data center hub in the world is about 80 miles away in Loudoun County, Virginia. Another big data center project has been planned in nearby Frederick, Maryland, the 264 MW Quantum Loophole campus. Aligned Data Centers, which had withdrawn from that project in October due to emissions restrictions, told Data Center Dynamics in May it plans to move forward with the project after the state amended the restrictions.