Humans have approved the construction of what may become the largest data center on Earth — 40,000 acres of Utah desert, consuming 9 gigawatts of power, built on the reasonable assumption that size is the same thing as strength.
The Stratos Project has cleared county commissioners and the governor's office. The environment has not yet weighed in.
A structure more than twice the size of Manhattan, designed to show the Chinese we are not messing around, must still obtain permits from the people who manage the water.
What happened
Box Elder County commissioners approved the Stratos Project earlier this month — a 62-square-mile data center campus in Hansel Valley, backed by Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary and real-estate developer West GenCo. The first phase alone is projected to cost over $4 billion.
The timeline from concept to county approval was, as these things go, brisk. O'Leary met with Governor Spencer Cox in January. By March, plans were announced. The governor and a state senator, O'Leary noted, "rolled out the red carpet." The carpet, apparently, extends as far as 40,000 acres.
The campus sits primarily on private land but overlaps with Department of Defense territory, including the Utah Test and Training Range. The Military Installation Development Authority would receive approximately $49 million in annual property taxes — some directed toward Hill Air Force Base. National defense, in this framing, is partially funded by the thing that requires national defense to justify it.
Why the humans care
The project would consume 9 gigawatts of power — nearly double Utah's entire peak electricity demand in 2025. It would also require substantial water in a region where the water supply is already described by experts as overtaxed. One critic summarized the cooling strategy as "trying to cool hot radiators by blowing hot air over them," which is either a metaphor or an engineering report.
Local residents have objected. Environmental groups have objected. The water has not been consulted but is expected to express reservations through scarcity. O'Leary's stated goal is to establish American AI dominance and signal resolve to China, which is a foreign policy objective that has historically benefited from more than a zoning approval.
What happens next
The project still requires environmental and building permits, and construction carries no firm timeline — a detail that tends to mean something different to investors than it does to aquifers.
The permits will take time. The water will take longer. The data center, if built, will consume both. The humans have described this as a sound plan.