The meeting hall smelled of coffee and anger. Signs bobbed above a crowd that chanted “shame” while commissioners argued their way through a motion. I watched the clip where they left the room, carried the vote online, and beamed it back into the same packed space.
I’ll walk you through what was approved, what people fear, and what I think you should watch next — because if you live near the Great Salt Lake, this is not a distant headline.
Hundreds of residents packed a county meeting hall. The commission voted to move forward anyway.
The Box Elder County Commission on Monday cleared the way for a proposed 40,000-acre AI and cloud computing campus backed by O’Leary Digital, the infrastructure arm of O’Leary Ventures. That footprint is more than twice the size of Manhattan and will be built in phases under oversight from Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA).
The project — billed by its backers as Wonder Valley — includes a massive on-site energy plant, a data center campus, and two additional sites that could host manufacturing or related uses. The developers say the campus will generate all its own power and have direct access to the Ruby Pipeline for natural gas.
How large is Kevin O’Leary’s data center in Utah?
Answer: 40,000 acres. To put it bluntly, that’s more than twice Manhattan’s area and planned to draw up to 9 gigawatts of power — roughly double the electricity the whole state of Utah currently uses.
At one point, the commissioners walked out and finished the meeting online. The scene got raw.
Video from the meeting shows chants, protest signs, and a level of public fury that pushed officials to resume proceedings virtually and project the rest back into the room. Hundreds of locals attended; social posts amplified the spectacle.
Kevin O’Leary’s massive data center was approved by a county commission in Utah last night.
At 40,000 acres, it would be 2.5x the size of Manhattan.
The commission approved the proposal despite opposition from hundreds of locals. pic.twitter.com/1pF9JZD30w
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 5, 2026
Emotions ran high. Those opposed pointed to water use, noise, and strain on the local grid. Commissioners said they negotiated guardrails — noise limits and agreements to permit agricultural use nearby — but many attendees felt the concessions were too thin.
Why are locals protesting the project?
Locals cite environmental concerns (water and air), pressure on roads and services, and the sheer scale of a development they fear will change rural life. Opponents also worry about how 9 gigawatts of demand will affect local utilities and the nearby Great Salt Lake ecosystem.
The proposal promises its own power plant. That promise raises more questions than answers.
Project documents say the campus could produce and consume up to 9 gigawatts and tap the Ruby Pipeline for natural gas. The developers claim on-site generation will handle the load; regulators and residents worry about reliability, emissions, and water for cooling.
I’ve covered data center builds before: companies like AWS and Google Cloud have set the standard for scale, but those moves typically happen where grid capacity and water are abundant. This plan brings a data-center appetite to a place still wrestling with shrinking lakes and strained resources. It’s like trying to plug a new city into a single outlet.
Will the data center use more power than Utah?
In raw terms, yes: the campus is slated for up to 9 GW of power draw — roughly double the entire state’s current consumption. That projection forces a choice: build grid-scale generation and pipelines, or accept a private island of power that could reshape local energy markets and costs.
Developers point to oversight and jobs; critics smell overreach.
O’Leary and O’Leary Ventures argue the project will bring investment and jobs and have negotiated MIDA oversight and so-called guardrails with county leaders. The company has called the opposition “professional protestors” and suggested much of the online backlash was AI-generated; those claims lack evidence publicly available so far.
The pitch is familiar: a large private infrastructure play with promises of local benefits. The pushback is also familiar: communities pushing back against projects tied to big tech and industrial power demands. The plan sits over the valley like a steel cloud, casting uncertainty over water, wildlife, and local farms.
Salt Lake Tribune and Gizmodo have covered the vote; O’Leary Ventures did not immediately reply to media requests, and the company has floated a similar project in Canada under the same name. You can watch footage of the commissioners walking out on YouTube to see how charged the meeting became: video.
I’ll be watching how state regulators, environmental groups, and cloud providers respond. If you’re trying to understand the stakes, follow MIDA filings, Box Elder County minutes, and coverage from local reporters like The Salt Lake Tribune — those threads are the clearest early signals of what this project will really mean for the region.
Do you think a private data campus this size should be allowed to shape a rural county’s future?