09/09/2026
“Applied Digital also defends its process. A statement from Phillips said NDAs are commonly used in economic development across most industries.
The NDAs were active for roughly six weeks while the company asked questions about the cities, jurisdictions and how Applied Digital may fit into future plans. Information about the company was also shared throughout the process.
“As a publicly traded company, when we share information about potential projects that involve non-public, material information, if someone were to trade on this information it would be a violation of federal law, so we want to make sure that people we are dealing with are aware of these laws,” Phillips said. “Once the deal is announced publicly, the NDAs are no longer needed.”
The topics of data centers and public officials signing NDAs made their way through the North Dakota special legislative session. One bill proposed prohibiting public officials from signing certain NDAs involving data centers and other industrial projects, though it failed in the Senate.
Sinner said he joined Voices of Harwood specifically because he believes elected officials should not sign NDAs.
“The simple question is, if these facilities are so great, then why do they need to be hidden?” Sinner asked. “Why can’t it be presented to the people?”
Swartz feels it’s important to know the implications of any given project before agreeing to it, and believes that, in the case of the data center, there are some serious issues that haven’t been addressed. In such a rapidly growing and evolving industry, many questions don’t have answers.
“If industry is going to truly come in and want to be our neighbor, then let’s not start off the conversation by hiding behind NDAs and closed doors,” he said. “Let’s talk to the people (who we’re) going to be neighbors with.”
Sinner agrees there are many uncertainties and feels data centers need to be regulated or risk getting out of hand, but he’s more concerned with how the process was handled than the fact that it’s a data center.”
