Kevin O’Leary wants to build one of the largest data centers in the United States. A significant number of Utah residents would prefer he didn’t.
The project, dubbed Stratos or Wonder Valley, is a natural-gas-powered data center campus planned for Box Elder County, Utah, designed to serve the rapidly accelerating demand for AI compute power. At full build-out, the facility would span 40,000 acres and generate up to 9 GW of power capacity.
A project scaled for AI dominance, met with grassroots resistance
O’Leary, best known as “Mr. Wonderful” from Shark Tank, has framed the data center as essential to US national security and competitiveness with China.
Local residents see things differently. More than 3,000 public comments were submitted during protest proceedings, and 53% of Utah residents oppose the project according to polling data. The concerns center on potential environmental damage to the Great Salt Lake and surrounding natural resources.
