CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — The former paper mill site in Chillicothe could be serving artificial intelligence customers by New Year’s Day. SOAR AI says its planned AI campus at the shuttered mill remains on schedule, with its first graphics processing units expected to be operational by the end of 2026 and customer revenue projected to begin in January 2027, according to the Chillicothe Gazette.
SOAR AI was previously known as the Volato Group, which merged with Alignment Engine in August of this year; Alignment Engine was valued at around $500 million in that merger, according to the Chillicothe Gazette. The plan turns one of the city’s landmark industrial sites — a paper mill that closed — into a data facility built around the mill’s existing infrastructure.
“Less than two months after closing our merger, we are turning a shuttered Ohio paper mill into one of the most advanced AI compute facilities in the Midwest,” SOAR AI chief executive officer Chris Ensey said in a news release quoted by the Chillicothe Gazette. “Reusing the mill’s existing power and water infrastructure, combined with direct liquid cooling, lets us bring capacity online in months rather than years. Our power systems are commissioned, and the data hall equipment is going in now. We expect our first AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs to be serving our first customer on Dec. 31, with next-generation MI455X GPUs on the Helios platform to follow in 2027.”
The timeline has a paper trail in the city as well. For months, the city stated that no permits had been filed for work at the site, but in early November the City of Chillicothe’s Building Department said applications have been submitted, according to the Chillicothe Gazette. The company’s news release said work on the power and cooling side of the data hall is already taking place, with low-voltage transformers and cooling plant equipment being installed, the Gazette reported.
The company also plans to add two additional tranches of GPUs for future customers in the latter part of 2027, according to the Chillicothe Gazette. That staged build-out means the Dec. 31 target is a first customer, not a finished campus — the facility grows through 2027 if the schedule holds.
For Chillicothe, the project is the latest chapter in a long argument about what replaces a mill town’s mill. The reuse pitch — existing power and water infrastructure, cooling drawn from the site’s industrial bones — is specifically built on what the paper operation left behind. Whether it delivers will be measured first against a date less than two months away.
What happens next: SOAR AI expects its first AMD Instinct MI355X GPUs to serve a first customer on Dec. 31, with customer revenue projected in January 2027 and further GPU tranches in the latter part of 2027, according to the Chillicothe Gazette.