Anthropic · Google · New York · Ars Technica
The complex corporate web behind a $3.2 billion AI data center
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In early June, a fire broke out in a still-unfinished building at the Lake Mariner data center in Somerset, New York, exposing how little the local fire department knew about what it was walking into.
Key facts
- This was only a fraction of the 165 permanent jobs and $85 million in capital investment promised in 2019, when Somerset Operating Company, the landlord entity owned by TeraWulf CEO Paul Prager
- Its original 2024 CSR report described Lake Mariner as powered by “95 percent zero-carbon energy
- When you have a big load, especially if it’s 24/7, 365, the whole system gets more expensive,” said Leah Stokes, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies
- That’s separate from the roughly 90 megawatts—about 18 percent of the site’s total interconnection capacity—that Lake Mariner will draw via NYPA’s High Load Factor Program, which Langlais said “is
Summary
Steve Matisz, chief of the Barker Fire Department, said his crew went into the building “kind of blind,” facing heavy black smoke from chemicals they couldn’t identify because the safety sheets meant to inform them had apparently burned up. The site is a former coal mine on Lake Ontario. TeraWulf eventually told me that it was responsible “for operational safety and emergency preparedness at the Lake Mariner Data Campus, including required safety systems and coordinating with local first responders.” Kerri Langlais, the company’s chief strategy officer, added that the company had implemented Knox boxes, additional hydrants, and safety data sheet “go-bags” following an after-action review with the county.