What Quantica is building outside Broadview

Quantica launched its Montana platform, Big Sky Digital Infrastructure, in August 2025, describing a campus on about 5,000 acres.[2] Its website now says 5,100 acres owned fee simple, about 30 miles north of Billings and about 3.5 miles outside Broadview.[1] The Montana Free Press describes it as nearly eight square miles.[14]

It is not a proposal on paper. Equipment staging began in early September 2026, followed by access roads and work on the well.[14]

On May 20, 2026, Quantica announced it had filed interconnection applications with NorthWestern Energy for up to 7,235 megawatts.[3] The company described the campus as 1,100 MW, and told reporters it planned 500 MW in its first year and 1,100 MW by its second, and that the full request “doesn’t necessarily” mean it would use that amount.[4]

In public, the company says it is “evaluating natural gas” among other sources, and that it will pay for its own generation.[1] Its chief accounting officer told reporters that NorthWestern’s ratepayers “will not be responsible for the cost of power.”[4]

The state’s own correspondence is more specific. Emails from Montana DEQ obtained by the Billings Gazette describe 585 MW of gas-fired engines and 1,200 MW of gas-fired turbines, 1,785 MW in all. After a pre-application meeting in March 2026, a DEQ air permitting staffer estimated the project would need a Major New Source Review / Prevention of Significant Deterioration permit, with public review and likely an environmental impact statement. An April email noted the plants would need a gas line.[8]

The Billings Gazette has also reported Public Service Commission filings showing NorthWestern is considering a gas storage facility near the Broadview substation.[10]

No one has published an answer. This site found no noise study, no site plan showing where the buildings, cooling equipment or generators would stand, and no distance from the campus to the nearest homes. The campus is about 5,100 acres, and the generation DEQ’s emails describe is 585 MW of gas engines and 1,200 MW of gas turbines.[1][8]

The campus would draw water from a new public water supply well into the Madison aquifer. The well site is in the NE¼ of the SW¼ of Section 9, Township 3 North, Range 23 East, about 3.5 miles southeast of Broadview. The Madison lies roughly 1,000 feet below the Eagle Sandstone aquifer that supplies most nearby wells.[11]

• During construction: about 150,000 gallons a day.[11]
• After construction: about 20,000 gallons a day, for drinking water and possibly the closed-loop cooling system.[11][13]
• Pumping: up to 160 gallons a minute for up to 16 hours a day, by the company’s figures.[13]

The company says the Madison is not hydraulically connected to the Eagle, so neighbors’ wells would not be affected.[13] That is the company’s claim. A retired Montana Tech hydrogeologist told the Montana Free Press that Madison water in the area is warm and salty and would need reverse-osmosis treatment, which leaves a brine to dispose of.[14]

DEQ is reviewing the well under a categorical exclusion from a programmatic environmental assessment: a determination that the action does not need its own environmental assessment. DEQ’s review covers water quality. Water quantity and water rights belong to the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, from which a data center must obtain a water right, a change in use, or water from an existing right holder.[11][12]

The 1,785 MW of gas engines and turbines DEQ’s emails describe is, on the same arithmetic, more than the 1,100 MW the company calls the campus.[8] How much of that generation would serve the campus, and how much would be sold or held in reserve, is not in the record.

• Quantica Infrastructure, which names EnCap Investments L.P., an energy private-equity firm, as its sponsor.[3]
• John Chesser, CEO, per the company’s 2026 releases.[3][13]
• Charlie Baker, described as chief financial officer in 2025 and chief accounting officer in 2026.[2][4]
• Damon Obie, Quantica’s lawyer in Yellowstone County’s initiative fight, per the Montana Free Press.[16] See Context.

No tenant has been announced. In June 2026 the company announced an agreement with the Southeastern Montana Building and Construction Trades Council; few of its terms are public.[15]

The company’s FAQ, citing the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research, says:[1]

• about 2,000 Montana jobs at peak construction, about 500 of them direct;
• about 600 ongoing jobs;
• about $20 billion of capital spending for a 500 MW facility, about $2 billion of it in Montana.