Rolls-Royce to make further investment at Minnesota plant

Rolls-Royce Mankato facility LOC rendering (Photo: Rolls-Royce)

Rolls-Royce has announced that it is to invest a further $24 million at its plant in Mankato, Minnesota.

The investment, which follows a previous round of spending at the plant in 2020, will more than double production of backup power generation systems for data centers.

Included in the investment will be a new Logistics Operation Center (LOC) which will cover about 2.5 hectares (approx. 25,000 square metres).

This will help to increase capacity for the mtu Series 4000 gen sets, said to be in high demand due to the rapid growth of the data centre industry.

The investment at Mankato follows on from the more than $1 billion Rolls-Royce has invested in US operations in the last decade.

Tufan Erginbilgic, CEO, Rolls-Royce, said: “The US market is very important to Rolls-Royce. We have a proud history in America and we are committed to strengthening our presence to support further growth, bringing economic benefits and job opportunities.

“Today’s announcement is proof of the transformation of Rolls-Royce in action, enabling us to invest in areas of strategic focus, such as power generation.”

Rolls-Royce anticipates production at the Minnesota facility will increase by more than 120% by 2026 as compared to last year, with further growth expected in the future. The LOC is expected to become operational next spring, with new jobs created over the next three years.

The generator sets use mtu Series 4000 engines that are currently built at the Rolls-Royce facility in Aiken, South Carolina. This facility is also expected to see an increase in engine production, resulting in a further increase in headcount to keep up with demand.

Last year sales of power generation products for the data center segment grew almost 50%. The U.S. leads the data center market, with more than half of the world’s hyperscale data centers located in the country. As much as $1 trillion is expected to be spent in the U.S. on AI data centers, components, and associated infrastructure over the next few years.