Canadian businessman and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, known for his blunt advice to hopeful entrepreneurs, has defended himself after backlash from Utah residents who oppose his plan to build a massive, multibillion-dollar data center in the state.
“I’m pretty aware of what these concerns are,” he said in a video posted to his X account that has been viewed more than 1.3 million times. “They are around air, water use, heat, noise pollution, so sustainability is at the heart of what we do.”
O’Leary Digital (part of O’Leary Ventures), which is also building a $70 billion AI data center in Alberta, Canada, has partnered with Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) for the new campus. It would span roughly 40,000 acres across three sites in a dry, rural area of the Box Elder County region north and west of the Great Salt Lake.
The project has faced intense opposition, even though the planned construction site is fairly remote, with few houses, if any, for miles. Local concerns include the impact on wildlife, and meeting the project’s demand for electricity and water, which data centers consume in copious amounts.
“It’s an extremely rural area to be honest with you,” says Wade Hayman, an agent with KW Success Keller Williams Realty in Box Elder County. “The biggest concern for me is the water.”
Hayman, who lives an hour and half away and has sold properties west of the planned site, says locals go to the area, boxed in by Old Railroad Grade Road and Hansel Valley Road, and south of Route 84, mostly to “shoot guns and shoot rabbits.”
“I have mixed emotions,” he tells Realtor.com®. “The way the world is going, we don’t have an option not to get on board with the data centers if we want to stay on top of things. I feel the concerns of people. But the way AI is going, it’s going to have to be built somewhere. It’s not like it’s prime real estate.”
He says that, as a real estate agent: “I’m torn because it’s the same argument people use with housing. People complain houses are being built on orchards, but they didn’t mind when their own house was built on an orchard.”
Commission meeting draws large protest
Locals came out in droves on May 4 to protest the project at a Box Elder County Commission meeting. While no public comments were officially allowed, the packed crowd loudly chanted, shouted, and jeered at the three commissioners until they finally left the stage and continued the meeting virtually.
The commission unanimously approved a resolution that would give MIDA consent to create the Stratos project area, on land owned by the Department of Defense and the Utah Trust Lands Administration, and which “may include a state-of-the-art data center.”
“Today’s decision isn’t the end of the oversight process, but just the beginning,” Box Elder County Commissioner Tyler Vincent said in a statement.
The commission said it took into account 2,500 submitted comments from the community as well as the public comments at an April 22 meeting.
The community, however, says it feels unheard. “It’s not like we are being heard here anyway,” one man shouted at the latest meeting, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
Top community concerns include water usage, noise, and the ecological and energy costs of the center.
Concerns about water usage are especially intense in Utah, where the the Great Salt Lake is drying and the state hit a record low of snowpack this last winter. Howell Town, with a population of around 240, and the closest populated town to the proposed site, put out a water conservation message in February 2024.
Estimates for the project say the first phase alone will require 3 gigawatts of power—almost as much as the entire state uses on average. Eventually, this is estimated to grow to use 9 gigawatts of power, according to MIDA Executive Director Paul Morris. New York City uses 10.4 gigawatts, and that’s only during the hottest summer months.
Supporters of the plan—including O’Leary, who is facetiously dubbed “Mr. Wonderful” for his brash personality—argue that the center will use a closed-loop cooling system that will continually reuse water. Nevertheless, the Utah Division of Water Rights received hundreds of complaints over the submitted water rights application.
“I refuse to let this greed imperil our already fragile wildlife, I refuse to allow some useless technology steal the rest of our insufficient water for a project that is way beyond the scale of this area,” local Monika Norwid wrote in, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Sentiment against the project is so strong that after the Monday meeting the three commissioners were placed under police protection due to threats, reports KVNU. Realtor.com® reached out to the county for comment.
Commissioner Lee Perry tried to clarify that the commission’s vote was not an approval to build the facility, but rather a strategic agreement between the county and MIDA that would allow for further input and negotiation.
The commission touted several “improvements and guardrail provisions” it was responsible for, including limits on noise levels, restrictions on building heights, compliance with dark sky regulations, inclusion of a local landowner in the review process, and agriculture uses in and around the development area.
While the development of a data center is getting all the attention, future usage for the site may also include manufacturing, retail, restaurants, hotels, and public works infrastructure, such as sewer, water, and drainage systems, says the county.
The commission argues that the project will create over 2,000 jobs, as well as “strengthen domestic energy capacity, support national defense priorities, and create long-term economic opportunity in Northern Utah.”
MIDA director Morris said in the same statement that “the combination of site location and design make Stratos one of the most sustainable and effective data centers in the country.”
“The key message I want to emphasize to residents is that we want to hear from them, and the most effective way to share feedback and ask questions is through our webpage,” public information officer Lynnette Crockett told Realtor.com.
O’Leary emphasizes his focus on sustainability
In his video response to the protests posted on X, O’Leary leaned into the sustainability theme.
“I’m the only developer of data centers on earth who graduated from environmental studies,” he said in his video. “We search for the best technology. There’s many air-cooled turbines now so you’re blending in air-cooled versus water … there’s so many ways to generate power. We can also put a percentage of the power generation through solar, wind, and batteries.”
Many X commenters pointed out that natural gas is planned to power the center—not solar, wind, or batteries—which auto-created a corrective “context box” below the video.
“We think over 90% of the protesters are actually not people who live in Utah or Box Elder County, they’re being bussed in,” he continued. “The people who live in Utah aren’t stupid. They see this happening and say, ‘Why am I letting people who don’t even live in my state make decisions for me?'”
He went on to claim that “somebody” had paid “professional protesters” to attend the meetings. He also accused AI of generating negative commentary online about the proposal. “It’s kind of funny when you think about it,” he said with a laugh. “It’s kind of hypocritical.”
Countered a woman named Jessica, “Oh no, you don’t get to play the whole ‘bussed in’ bullshit here. I was at that meeting yesterday, I live here, and I’m sure as hell not paid. That room was packed with MAGA, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, conservatives … all standing side by side to fight against it.”
What are data centers?
Data centers are facilities designed to store, process, and manage large amounts of digital information, and demand for them has exploded with the rise of artificial intelligence, which relies on the facilities for both training and routine operation.
They contain servers and networking equipment, supported by power and cooling systems that maintain proper operating temperatures.
Currently, there are more than 4,200 data centers throughout the country, with Virginia and Texas leading the way with at least 598 and 439 data centers, respectively.
Other states where many data centers are being built include Texas, Virginia, California, Illinois, and Arizona. Utah has 43 data centers—but Stratos would be by far the largest not only in the state, but in the country.
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