A celebrity-backed hyperscale data center proposal in rural Utah would cover 40,000 acres and require 9 gigawatts of power when completed. Estimates project a 64% increase in the state’s carbon emissions. The facility would be located near the northern tip of the shrinking Great Salt Lake, which is expected to reach record-low elevation after an unprecedented dry winter. The project’s water needs are unknown. A physics professor warns the development could create a massive heat island, covering an area comparable to Washington, D.C., and raising nighttime temperatures by as much as 28 degrees Fahrenheit, potentially devastating local ecology. Box Elder County commissioners approved the project on May 4, 2026.
"Plans for a celebrity-backed "hyperscale" data center in rural Utah, so massive that it would consume more than double the state's current electricity use, have generated an intense public and political backlash in a state where the motto is "industry" and a Republican supermajority tends to be deferential to development."
"The project, brought by "Shark Tank" TV personality Kevin O'Leary, would span 40,000 acres, demand 9 gigawatts of power once completed, and raise the state's carbon emissions by 64 percent, according to estimates. While its water needs remain unknown, the sprawling data center would neighbor the northernmost tip of the shrinking Great Salt Lake, which will likely hit a record-low elevation this year following an unprecedented dry winter."
"It could also create a massive heat island capable of devastating the area's ecology, said Robert Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University. Davies estimated that the finished project would cover about as many square miles as Washington, D.C., making it the largest data center on the planet, and that it could produce enough heat to spike nighttime temperatures by as much as 28 degrees Fahrenheit in the high-desert valley."
""I suspected it would not be good," Davies said. "What I've found is, it's so much worse than I even thought it would be.""
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