Business · Datacenter Dynamics
Utah Planning Commission delays decision on Kevin O’Leary-backed data center project
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A planning commission vote in Box Elder County, Utah, concerning a proposed hyperscale data center campus backed by Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary has been postponed, amidst claims by local officials that they were blindsided by the project's scope and state involvement.
Key facts
- The data center would sit on 40,000 acres of private land plus 1,200 acres of military and state-owned property
- The power capacity would be made up of onsite natural gas generation through a direct connection to the 680-mile (1,940km) Ruby interstate natural gas pipeline
- O’Leary has framed the development as a matter of national security: "China built 400GW of new power over the last 24 months, and much of it is powering AI data centers," O'Leary told the board
- The next meeting to vote on the project has subsequently been scheduled for May 4, with county officials moving the meeting to the Box Elder County Fairgrounds Fine Arts Building to accommodate
Summary
According to reporting by the Salt Lake Tribune, county commissioners postponed the meeting due to concerns that Utah's Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) and state officials were not clear about the size of the project and the extent of state and county involvement. “The thing that’s so frustrating for us, for commissioners, is all of a sudden, we’re brought this in the last hour, and we’re expected to hurry,” commission chair Tyler Vincent said in the meeting. The project has already gained approval from MIDA, which has been granted the authority by the state to oversee large-scale developments.