How Utah locals fought Kevin O'Leary's AI data center

Local political backlash, not economics, is now the biggest real-world check on the AI data center buildout's speed.

• Scale of the project: Kevin O'Leary announced a 40,000-acre, 9-gigawatt Stratos/Wonder Valley data center in Boxelder County, Utah — more than double the state's total current power usage.
• Approval bypassed locals: The project ran through MIDA, a Utah military-development agency with power to override local zoning; the county only learned of it in late March, weeks before MIDA's board approval.

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