A Utah mega data center promised 9 gigawatts — nobody local was asked first
Kevin O'Leary's Stratos project aimed to use more power than Utah's whole grid; a quiet approval process sparked a bipartisan revolt that forced it to shrink.
What happened: Investor Kevin O'Leary set out to build what he called the world's biggest data center on 40,000 acres of rural Utah, branded Stratos or 'Wonder Valley.' Planning documents described a facility drawing nine gigawatts of power — more than double the average electricity use of the entire state. O'Leary began pitching Utah's governor's office in January, and by late April was announcing the project publicly on Fox News, even though the host county had not yet approved it and most residents had never heard of it.
Why it matters: Nine gigawatts is an extraordinary amount of electricity for one private project to request — the kind of demand that forces utilities to plan new power plants or transmission lines for decades. Communities are increasingly the last checkpoint on whether that demand gets built nearby, and this case shows how often that checkpoint gets skipped until residents are presented with a done deal, leaving them to fight over power, water, and land use after the fact rather than before.
How the approval nearly skipped the public: The project ran through Utah's Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), a state body originally meant to develop underused military land, which can override local zoning once it designates a 'project area.' Landowners and the county are supposed to consent first, but reporting found the county commission didn't learn of the plan until roughly a month before MIDA's board voted — and that vote came just two days after the county's first public meeting on it.
The rollout: Once word spread — through local news, Facebook, and word of mouth — opposition was immediate and crossed political lines: conservative groups and environmental and water-preservation activists who normally clash found common cause against the project. Protests escalated, O'Leary publicly branded critics as 'Chinese spies' on Fox News (prompting an on-air apology and a defamation lawsuit), and the backlash ultimately forced Stratos to be scaled down well below its original scope.