The tallest structure in North America is the 2,060 tall KRDK TV mast
Halfway between Fargo and Grand Forks, a steel TV mast rises out of the Red River Valley. When it was completed in August 1963, it became the tallest structure on Earth and the first to top 2,000 feet. Today its neighbor, the KRDK-TV mast, holds the title of tallest structure in the Western Hemisphere and sixth-tallest in the world.
When I tell people this, nobody expects the tallest thing on the continent to be in North Dakota, let alone to have been there for more than 60 years.
But that’s North Dakota. The state has always had big skies, open space, and a habit of quietly punching above its weight. Today it is using its natural advantages and legacy in energy and agriculture to forge an economy built for the future: advanced manufacturing, autonomy and digital infrastructure.
At the invitation of Governor Kelly Armstrong and the North Dakota Department of Commerce, we spent a week on the ground to see it up close.
Zach Silber
Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Standard & Works
1. ⛽ The Foundation
The Bakken East pipeline will bring natural gas into emerging advanced manufacturing and data center clusters across the eastern side of the state | Map by WBI Energy
Energy and agriculture are the cornerstones of North Dakota. The Bakken East Pipeline shows how they're being turned into something new.
The project: WBI Energy's line will run about 350 miles from western North Dakota to the eastern part of the state, with additional laterals. With an estimated capital investment of $2.7 billion to $3.2 billion, it is the largest project for a pipeline business that has roots going back a century. The project is under review by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The opportunity: Moving natural gas east to Fargo will enable a string of new generation that can anchor a cluster of advanced manufacturing – including a burgeoning drone industry – as well as data centers.
The timeline: Phase one runs about 125 miles from near Watford City, in the heart of the Bakken, to near Washburn on the Missouri River north of Bismarck, and is targeted for service in November 2029. Phase two continues from Washburn to Mapleton, just west of Fargo, with a projected in-service date of November 2030.
The state's role: North Dakota is the only state with its own bank. “There are ten examples a week where [the Bank of North Dakota] becomes really important,” Governor Kelly Armstrong told me in March.
Most notably, Most notably, the state, through the Industrial Commission that also oversees BND, committed up to $50 million a year for 10 years to backstop capacity on Bakken East. The state plans to hand that capacity off to private businesses, but the backstop investment served as a bridge that allowed the project to move forward. (More on the Bank of North Dakota in our conversation with Governor Armstrong.)
2. 🖥️ Digital Infrastructure
Applied Digital’s campus in Ellendale, ND. The company was eligible for a property tax exemption but never applied, taking a long-term view toward investing in its host communities.
North Dakota has spent decades as a net exporter of energy. Applied Digital is betting that more of that power should be used inside the state.
The origin: The company arrived in 2021. "We thought that bringing data centers to where there's energy would make a whole lot of sense," Nick Phillips, Applied Digital’s EVP of Public Affairs and Real Estate Acquisition, told me.
The scale: According to Applied Digital, CoreWeave holds 400 MW under contract at the Polaris Forge 1 campus in Ellendale, representing about $11 billion in prospective lease revenue. The first 100 MW data center is operating, a second 150 MW building is expected online in 2026, and a third 150 MW facility in 2027.
The next campus: Polaris Forge 2 is a $3 billion AI data center campus on 900 acres in Harwood, North Dakota, planned at an initial 280 MW with room to grow well beyond that.
The climate edge: "For us as a data center, cold and windy is a very good thing. It saves us a lot of money in cooling," Phillips said. The company estimates that the cool climate, access to renewable power and related efficiencies will produce $2.7 billion in lifecycle savings over 30 years.
The secret sauce: At a moment of division around data centers, there are those developers still getting stuff done thanks to innovative approaches and a true community commitment.
“We are eligible in North Dakota for a pilot where we wouldn't have to pay any property tax,” Phillips told me. “We've never even applied.”
“We actually pay all of our property tax. We do that because we want to invest in our communities for police, fire, and roads, all those types of things. We do this with a multi-decade kind of perspective.”
3. 🚜 Autonomy on the Ground
Grand Farm is an autonomous farming ecosystem taking North Dakota’s legacy ag-industry into the future
Outside Fargo, Grand Farm is where the state's agricultural legacy meets autonomous technology.
The campus: Grand Farm's Innovation Campus is 590 acres. Its first building, the Innovation Shop, opened in May 2024 with event space for 300 people and shop space where partners can work on equipment.
The players: Legacy companies including Anheuser-Busch, John Deere and North Dakota–headquartered Bobcat work alongside startups from across the country.
The cross-industry play: When American Crystal Sugar faced harvest labor shortages, Grand Farm brought in defense contractor Kratos, whose lead-and-follow autonomous trucks could reduce the number of drivers needed. Kratos had never worked in agriculture. "We became that connector," Grand Farm Co-Founder and COO Brian Carroll told us.
Commerce's catalyst: The state's Department of Commerce committed a $10 million matching grant to Grand Farm, and the State has awarded $5 million in tax credits to incentivize adoption of robotics and autonomous technology that improves productivity.
Farming is a natural AI test-bed that gives autonomy developers controlled environments and fast iteration cycles. Technology proven in a field in the Red River Valley can then move into construction, logistics and defense.
4. 🛩️ Autonomy in the Air
A Global Hawk on the ramp at Grand Forks AFB. Photo by USAF.
In Grand Forks, GrandSKY and The Hive are building a Northern Plains version of El Segundo, California or Dayton, Ohio.
The origin: The 2005 BRAC round moved the base's tanker mission and thousands of jobs out of the community. The community answered by flipping the model. "Why don't we reverse the economic paradigm and figure out a way for the community to invest in the base?" said Tom Swoyer, President of GrandSKY. Grand Forks County leases 217 acres on Grand Forks Air Force Base and subleases them to GrandSKY, which has developed the land as a business park.
The anchors: Northrop Grumman was the first tenant to sign a lease at GrandSKY, and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems flew the park's first large UAS flight in July 2016.
The fit: "Energy, agriculture and military, those are our three big things here in North Dakota," Swoyer said. "Those are the low-hanging fruit for the drone industry." Out-of-state companies increasingly come for short testing stints, renting a hangar for a couple of months and leaning on GrandSKY for airspace authorization, BVLOS waivers, and frequency deconfliction, he told Standard & Works.
The jobs: About 271 people work across GrandSKY’s tenants and partners, at an average salary of roughly $117,000, about double the state median. Retention for out-of-state hires runs near 80%.
The pipeline: Less than 20 miles away in downtown Grand Forks is The HIVE, a UAS accelerator and startup hub housed in the former Grand Forks Herald building. The city has since entrusted GrandSKY with managing it. The HIVE is where graduates of the University of North Dakota's renowned aerospace school go to prototype new technology and launch companies like Kazi Drones, which is building an interceptor drone. To help those startups move from prototype to production, The HIVE brought in Team Industries, which operates factories around the country.
North Dakota also built infrastructure drone companies can't find elsewhere.
Vantis is the nation's first statewide beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone network, and its operator, the Northern Plains UAS Test Site, became the first nonfederal entity to manage drones using unfiltered data from the state's four FAA radars. The test site says Vantis has cut BVLOS waiver approvals from years to 23 business days.
Few places offer military runway access, a statewide drone network wired into the FAA radar, a university talent pipeline, and contract manufacturing in the same region.
But don’t assume this place is far off the beaten path. When you walk into The HIVE, the first thing you notice is a branded conference room sponsored by O'Leary Ventures. Savvy entrepreneurs and investors have already figured out that something special is happening in Grand Forks.
5. 🏭 Advanced Manufacturing
GoodBulb is the only American lightbulb manufacturer
The final pillar is making things in America, and North Dakota's legacy industries are supplying the inputs.
Lithium from the oil patch: Wellspring Hydro uses ion exchange to pull lithium out of the salty water that comes up with Bakken oil. Field trials near Killdeer in June and July of 2025 removed up to 99 percent of the lithium, averaging above 95 percent across tests, and the company says the resource could support up to 50,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent a year.
State seed capital: Wellspring has received more than $10 million in state grants to date. The company has since closed new funding rounds and is moving on to building facilities. "[BND] is able to come in and do due diligence with us, challenge us on that before we actually go into the private lending market to raise money for our project," said Mat Hirst, Wellspring Hydro's COO. "They've been crucial for that, and then they're able to buy down some of the interest rate for you as well."
Reshoring the everyday: GoodBulb's Fargo facility is the only factory in the United States making A19 LED bulbs, the standard household bulb. The company spent eight years developing its process, which can produce 10,000 or more bulbs per shift.
Closing the supply chain: LED chips and drivers still have to be imported because no domestic suppliers make them, and Phase Two of the factory will bring production of the diffuser, bulb body and base in-house. "The more that we can do here in North Dakota, the better it'll be for the country," said Tom Enright, GoodBulb’s founder and CEO.
📈 Built on Bedrock
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
North Dakota isn’t trading one economy for another. It’s not reinventing itself wholesale. Its taking its legacy advantages and applying them to win the race to reindustrialize.
A $3.2 billion pipeline will carry Bakken gas east to turn abundant resources into abundant power.
A 400 MW AI campus here runs on the state's energy and cold air, in harmony with community expectations.
Oilfield wastewater is becoming a critical mineral.
A 590-acre autonomous farm campus and 217-acre UAS business park on an Air Force base are proving grounds for autonomy.
In each of these cases, North Dakota put early capital at risk and created the conditions to get to "yes." Private investment followed.
In 1963, North Dakota put up the tallest structure on Earth in a field between Fargo and Grand Forks, because it had the open space and the nerve to try. Sixty years later, the same formula is at work. The advantages that were always here, combined with a willingness to go first, are building the industrial base the rest of the country is still talking about. Nobody expected it from North Dakota then either.
