As historically Black colleges and universities grapple with shrinking resources and mounting financial pressure, Fisk University President Agenia Walker Clark is betting the school's future on one of the most controversial developments in America: a data center.

Shocking some of its neighbors, the Nashville-based HBCU recently unveiled a $1 billion plan it calls "Quantum Leap " to revitalize its 40-acre campus. The plan’s financial anchor would be a $400 million Innovation Center, encompassing a 30,000-square-foot academic space alongside a 70,000-square-foot technology data center that Clark believes could generate revenue for the university for generations.

Demand for data centers is surging nationwide, driven by the rise of artificial intelligence and cloud computing—McKinsey & Company projects that cumulative global spending on data center infrastructure could reach $7 trillion by 2030. But local opposition has been rising too, with communities worried about the power and water demands of the centers, as well as any potential health effects.

For Clark, the project is about more than chasing a hot sector. It's about creating a sustainable path for a small university with roughly 1,000 students (mostly undergraduates, with a few dozen master’s degree candidates) and a meager endowment. As she tells it, the school’s tech focus makes the innovation center a natural fit, rather than a stretch. About 30% of graduates major in computer science, with many more minoring in data analytics.

Some HBCUs have recently landed major gifts from billionaires. Most notably, MacKenzie Scott, the author, philanthropist and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has made a string of donations. But Fisk has not been among Scott’s recipients. Clark says she is glad to see other HBCUs benefit, but her school is not waiting around for a transformative gift. Instead, she’s been tapping into her background in marketing and as a not-for-profit executive (she was CEO of Girl Scouts in Middle Tennessee for 19 years) to develop a strategy that makes sense for the school over the long haul.

“As long as we stay true to who we are and what we're doing, we will always be able to appeal to philanthropists who want to invest,” Clark told Forbes. “That's why this master plan is important, so they know what their investments will go into."

Fisk’s current endowment of $30 million works out to $30,000 per student. By contrast, Bates College, a small, predominantly white liberal arts school, has an endowment of $486 million, or more than a quarter........

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