this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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The Stratos artificial intelligence datacenter footprint will cover more than 40,000 acres (62 sq miles) over three sites in Box Elder county in north-western Utah. The facility will require about 9GW of power, which is more than the entire state of Utah currently consumes, and suck up a significant amount of water in an area that has been hit by severe drought in recent years.

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[–] Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 15 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

What are these data centers to be used for? People say AI, but that's not specific enough. This shit is surveillance state.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago

Yes its surveillance state being built. Humans will work for Ai in exchange for basic income.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 9 hours ago

AI for the surveillance state.
Sort of like the center point of skynet.
Soon there will be heavily armed autonomous mechs walking the perimeter shooting everything organic within 100m the property border

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.cafe 26 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

All those shithole Red states are going to get raped by data centers, while the Blue states will force them to pay their way.

[–] snapoff@sh.itjust.works 22 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It’s not that black and white (or red and blue as the case may be). I live in a blue state that is also selling out to data centers under the guise of “job creation”.

[–] this_1_is_mine@lemmy.ml 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Make them quantify jobs that they are creating

[–] 00xide@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 hours ago

They do quantify them. There's been counters for that. The people speak out against them at town halls. It still goes up.

[–] ElectricAirship@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Gonna be a cool liminal space in the next 5 years when this inevitably fails and gets abandoned

[–] ChaosSpectre@lemmy.zip 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

My money is on Ikea acquiring the leftovers to easily set up new locations lol

[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

You mean Costco, à la Idiocracy?

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

The Democratic People's Republic of Costco.

[–] ChaosSpectre@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 hours ago

I smell future competition

[–] hushable@lemmy.world 23 points 17 hours ago (2 children)
[–] belochka@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

If that's going to be one humongous superstructure, zoned inside, then if this fails, they might get a new city. Superstructures like this are nice, just nobody usually builds them (after 50s and 60s, I suppose) for residential areas.

One can repurpose the space for multi-story apartments (I suppose ceilings will be much higher than needed), or malls, or literally everything.

Or factories, if there are problems with exporting orders to southeast Asia.

If this even gets built.

Or if it doesn't fail, then heat and noise pollution, I suppose. And grid load. Not nice.

[–] cabillaud@lemmy.world 8 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

That's astonishing. How many servers will be running in that thing? Billions? Am I missing something?

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 9 points 16 hours ago

Zero servers are ever gonna run in this thing, it's just... even more obvious than with all the other fucking absued data center proposals.

[–] MushuChupacabra@piefed.world 31 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Those data centers are jam packed with copper, and have far less security per kg than you'd think.

Lots and lots of RAM kicking around too, if you're a little short.

[–] modus@lemmy.world 9 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Is it even the type of RAM peasants like me are interested in?

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 12 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

That depends, are you interested in money?

[–] Burninator05@lemmy.world 12 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 12 points 13 hours ago

I can't believe you like money too. We should hang out.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 10 hours ago

apparenlty not any AI can be used by an individual since its not compatible.

[–] Zron@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago

Remember your LOTO before you snip the wires

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 102 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

No backlash unless they are dragging the council members out of their homes.

[–] KC_Royalz@lemmy.world 71 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Which honestly needs to happen. Those council members should be fearing for their lives everytime they go outside. But Oleary probably gave them a fat paycheck so they will no longer have to live in the area.

[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 12 points 15 hours ago

They shouldn't be able to have dinner in peace

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 71 points 22 hours ago (6 children)

Why are they building these things in dry hot places, surely the one time real estate cost can’t dwarf all the other issues?

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 64 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

That's long-term thinking. I assume it's like a ponzi scheme: everyone who puts money into something like this thinks they'll cash out before the problems occur.

Why do I feel like the ones left holding the bag are going to be the taxpayers/residents somehow?

[–] belochka@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

If I were justifying my account name, I'd suppose, for the purpose of future appearing interesting, this might be a coverup.

Such a structure is useful for many things, and while a DC doesn't have to be that big, a factory producing real things on scale or mass housing or a prepared company town all benefit from being in one place.

So perhaps it's being built as a DC, but in fact is going to be like a drone factory, or something equally dystopian-futuristic.

Or a humongous supercomputer, whatever.

I'm starting to think along plot lines of science fiction and space operas I've seen and read before, they were saying it's harmful for my development, I didn't believe them.

Another option - it's, yes, a scheme and it won't get built. Just pump and dump.

[–] crusa187@lemmy.ml 27 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

~~E Pluribus Unum~~

Privatize the gains, Socialize the losses.

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Nobody is thinking this shit through long-term or short.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

evaporative cooling is better in a arid dry environment. of course this has the side effect of using ALOT more water than neccesarry. utah is already drier than salt.

[–] IHeartBadCode@fedia.io 17 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

It's located on the Ruby Pipeline which will serve as the primary source of energy in the short term. Additionally, the data center being classified as a national security site, is located near the Utah Test and Training Range.

Longer term the facility is looking at nuclear facilities for power and the possibility for a runway and aviation facilities.

The primary customer of this facility will be the United States military.

[–] redsand@infosec.pub 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

This is also why Utah. They will staff it with mormons and have fiber runs already

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 10 hours ago

they build it in red states because of the lack protest/resistance against it, at least from the gop.

[–] GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 16 points 19 hours ago

This. US military is the target market. That people live there, that humans need water to live, and that powering this is going to entirely erase the local agriculture and wider ecosystems are all irrelevant. Deus Vult.~

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[–] TechLich@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Not all data centres are evil and the issue is nuanced. This one sounds pretty evil though.

9GW is totally insane and they're building a gas plant for it instead of renewables (although there's some solar too). It's closed loop so the water use fears once it's running are probably a bit overblown, but the construction itself is going to be ecologically insane. The thing is basically a data city, 162 square km is even larger than a lot of cities and involves building an entire power plant and new energy infrastructure. Building it is a full megaproject and even just noise pollution and the construction impacts will mess with bird migration etc. Obviously the whole thing isn't going to be full of data centre, some of that space is empty but still.

It's also going to have the US military as a major client so... Pretty high up there on the evil scale IMO.

[–] YawningNostalgia@thelemmy.club 3 points 9 hours ago

Wym not all AI data centers?

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Okay. How is Mr Wonderful actually going to pay for this?

[–] MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip 8 points 15 hours ago

High-royalty, low-equity that sounds better than it is.

[–] KC_Royalz@lemmy.world 55 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Nearly 4,000 people have lodged objections to the project being approved, with this pushback leading to contentious public meetings that Lee Perry, the Box Elder county commissioner, said have left him feeling “physically sick” amid alleged death threats and false accusations.

Good

[–] vathecka@lemmy.radio 39 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

"waaahhh death threats" is the usual retort whenever someone gets deserved criticism. Maybe try not doing things that make your constituents want to kill you?

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 16 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

To be fair, there are a lot of unhinged people who resort to actual death threats for shit that in no way deserves that level of intensity. It's probably one of the big reasons why everyone who's actually smart enough to run a city/state/country is also smart enough not to.

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[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 13 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Wtf would you even want to make something that big.

Thats a huge geographic vulnerability. You could still make huge ones but spread it out.

[–] Insekticus@aussie.zone 13 points 18 hours ago

Greed. That's the entirety of the answer.

Whoever ticks and flicks these data centres is paid with grotesque amounts of money to approve this shit and to deal with the fallout.

[–] cranakis@reddthat.com 17 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Welcome to Costco, I love you.

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