There have been some interesting developments in the data center saga. The way the state government ram rodded this project and tone deaf messaging really peeved the locals.
After initially claiming less oversight was needed, Gov. Spencer Cox signed an executive order calling for greater state oversight of data center construction, and promised similar legislation in the fall.
Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams and head of MIDI who greenlit the whole thing, folded like a wet blanket and sent a letter to Kevin O’Leary demanding a 75% reduction of the project’s footprint, forcing it down from 40,000 acres to 10,000 acres.
Kevin O’Leary continues to alienate the locals by claiming they are paid operatives of the Chinese government.
Polls show that only 30% of Utahns support the data center. Terrible result for a normally pro-business state.
Thing is, if they had the water issue figured out, this is not a bad place for a data center because it is out in the middle of nowhere. Box Elder County is where the solid rocket boosters for the shuttle were built (now being used for Artemis). It is remote enough you can test rocket motors and you won’t bother anybody.
An interesting update. Stuart Adams got primaried! The underhanded way this went down was just a bit too sleazy for many Utah voters. Safe GOP district, so his opponent will almost certain win election.
Mr. Adams had won re-election for years with minimal opposition, but Ms. Hollist said she heard from many discontented voters as she knocked on doors over the past six months. The data center, she said, had been “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for many in Mr. Adams’s northern Utah district.
Not fer nuthin’, but my county commissioners just voted a one-year moratorium on data centers while they “figure stuff out.” The commish best known for his fealty to developers was trounced, fwiw. (Vote was 10-0, so I guess even though he argued against the moratorium he voted for it; apparently he got the memo.)
Incidentally, this is the heart of TVA land, and we have cheap power and plenty of water!
Another interesting development. Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary advanced the notion that opponents of his data center were operatives paid by the Chinese Communist Party. Fox News allowed him to voice these allegations unchallenged without providing evidence or even following up with the accused parties.
Turns out, the targets of these allegations were not amused and have filed a lawsuit against O’Leary and Fox.
Speaking of the CCP, here’s an article from the NYT last week…
China, Russia and Others Seek to Inflame Debate Over A.I. Data Centers https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-data-centers.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share …All are examples of a push by foreign adversaries to seize on what polls have shown is deep ambivalence — verging at times on hostility — about the spread of the data centers needed to power A.I. in the United States and elsewhere.
China, Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran have sought to use state media outlets to turn the controversy over data centers in the United States into “a domestic fracture point,” according to a new analysis by Alethea, a threat intelligence company, which identified scores of articles and posts on social media this year…
“Foreign actors aren’t manufacturing American debates over the future of A.I., they are exploiting them,” said Jessica Brandt, a former official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who tracked foreign influence efforts during the Biden administration. The goal, she added, is to “deepen our divisions in order to dent our appeal and weaken us from within.”