TAC: Great Falls Project Cardinal Campus

Project Cardinal was TAC Data Centers' proposed hyperscale campus on the northeast edge of Great Falls, Montana. The land is a ranch tract of about 550 acres that the Roehm family owns; TAC marketed it as 569 acres. It is Tract 1 of Cascade County Certificate of Survey 5483. The tract lies outside city limits, east of the Great Falls AgriTech Park and north of Malmstrom Air Force Base, near NorthWestern Energy's Rainbow substation and the southern end of the Montana-Alberta Tie Line.

TAC is the data center platform of Atlanta-based The Ardent Companies, a different company from Northern Data's Ardent Data Centers. The Great Falls Development Alliance announced the project in June 2025. TAC's site plan showed up to 20 single-story buildings with about 2 million square feet in total, and two on-site substations, one for the utility and one for the owner. The estimated investment was $1 billion to $1.5 billion. The City of Great Falls would have had to annex and zone the land. The cooling design was recirculating, with water from the city or from former smelter water rights.

TAC asked NorthWestern Energy for power, but the utility's transmission study moved slowly. TAC also talked with other suppliers, including BHE Montana, BHE Canada and AlbertaEx. In November 2025 the Development Alliance said TAC had withdrawn because the power timelines did not fit, and TAC released its option on the land. No annexation or zoning request reached a public vote. The 2026 tax roll still lists the Roehm family as owner.