Data centers in Utah

Seth Cox, Utah County Planning Commission board member, said data centers are like landfills that nobody wants near them but everyone uses.

Shayne Pierce, board chair of the Utah County Planning Commission, said the ordinance sets limits on data center development for unincorporated parts of Utah County that did not exist before.

Spanish Fork City Council member Kevin Oyler stated that the Novva data center campus five miles away in West Jordan is quiet.

One woman was booked into the Utah County Jail and two other attendees were cited following the disturbance at the Utah County Planning Commission meeting. The woman refused to leave, argued with deputies, and struck a deputy in the groin while being removed from a row of chairs as two others grabbed her, after which she and a deputy went to the ground; Provo Fire Department EMS evaluated her for reported jaw pain and found no immediate emergency injuries.

Tensions rose after the vote as residents yelled in opposition to the ordinance allowing data centers in Mining and Grazing and Industrial zones. A protester forced to the ground and arrested by deputies was not being vocal when taken into custody, and her treatment was unjust.

Hansel Valley residents and farmers voiced alarm over groundwater depletion from 1,712 acre-feet industrial pumping, unmitigated turbine noise from 15 natural gas generation blocks, and the county's refusal to put the zoning overlay to a public ballot pending 1st District Court review.

7.5 GW of thermal generation and 11 data center clusters cannot operate without massive evaporative consumption in an arid Great Salt Lake sub basin, and shifting 1,712 acre-feet of agricultural rights to industrial cooling in Hansel Valley directly threatens down gradient spring flows into the lake.

Wonder Valley's private gas generation and water recycling deliver grid independence without competing with Wasatch Front residential water or power demands.

Closed loop cooling with 10% freshwater makeup from agricultural water right 13-2 preserves Hansel Valley aquifer levels while avoiding any direct Great Salt Lake tributary depletion.

Peter Crosby said local control is being ignored because external pressure is forcing data center decisions against the will of local residents, citing Box Elder as an example

Blake Moore said data centers are part of the immediate future and legislation should ensure electricity costs do not go up for residents

Peter Crosby said he is for a future where local communities decide whether data center infrastructure is appropriate for them

Utah State University launched an initiative called Data Center Development in Utah to broaden understanding about data centers

Utah State University survey of 900 residents shows 75.4 percent oppose or strongly oppose a data center proposal somewhere in the state

Paul Palandjian, CEO of O'Leary Digital, stated that public sentiment matters and the Box Elder County project includes elements to address public concerns.

Senator John Curtis introduced legislation to establish a federal program to advise residents near potential data center developments of their economic impacts.

Paul Palandjian stated that project personnel received threats of violence driven by misinformation.

Kylie Kremer, senior advisor for Humans First, stated that small towns lack the monetary backing to fight data center development.

Cathy Latham stated people across the country are tired of not being part of data center planning discussions.

Humans First conducted the 29th stop of its nationwide Data Center Revolt tour in Brigham City on October 1, 2026, with the tour starting in Texas on September 12.

Paul Palandjian said 'The project is not on hold,' and that O'Leary Digital is in early design and engineering of the project's infrastructure, gas supply and power generation, with engineering, environmental and economic impact studies underway under guidelines set by the state of Utah and the Military Installation Development Authority.

Lexi Tuddenham said the project raises larger questions about federal land, and that nuclear waste storage, nuclear development and data centers on public land would have 'tremendous implications for how public lands are used.'

Valar Atomics said 'No construction begins before permits and approvals,' and that it is committed to public engagement on the project.

Lexi Tuddenham said 'We have a right to know as citizens what is going on, not just with our state lands, but also with our federal lands.'

Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, said Republicans offered only a toothless messaging bill and that voluntary pledges do not work.

Neal Clark said 'It's concerning to see that the Trump administration, with the support of the state of Utah, is pushing this forward on significant acreage of public lands.'

Ingrid Bettridge said the public should benefit from data center development through community redevelopment funded by facility revenues.

Tyson Reese with Americans for Prosperity in Utah said data centers should not be subsidized by taxpayers.

Rep. Dina Titus is pushing the Public Lands Accountability Act to ensure data center projects on public lands adhere to the National Environmental Policy Act.

Uriah Kennedy warned of misinformation about data centers and defended their importance for national defense and artificial intelligence development.

Kevin O'Leary and Fox News seek dismissal of defamation lawsuit from Stratos opponents; argue statements about Chinese funding connections were protected speech

Spanish Fork Mayor Mike Mendenhall said the council has listened to people's concerns, including the amount of water a data center requires.

Jeff Chavez, CEO of Volition, said the company's closed loop cooling system uses about the amount of water equivalent to one or two Utah households.

Cheryl Lupo said 'People are up in arms' over the data centers planned in Carbon County, because, she said, residents are not being heard.

Tom Huckin, letter writer, opposes planned Box Elder County data center as hastening environmental destruction

Utah poll reached 744 registered voters from Sept. 10 to Sept. 15 with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points

Gov. Spencer Cox has called on the federal government to create more regulatory policy on AI, though the state is considering creating additional legislation itself

Aaron Starks, president and CEO of 47G, an aerospace and defense organization, said the four major areas of AI capability are chips, data centers, electricity and talent.

Zach Boyd said the U.S. does have a lead over China in AI, depending on how you measure the race, and the nation should be able to maintain it for some time

Tony Martines said nuclear power fits the long range plans of Carbon County, an energy producing community, adding 'We have the workforce. We have the space. We have all the infrastructure.'

Larry Jensen said 'the Carbon County commissioners are committed to allowing these things to move forward,' even with pushback from some residents, and that the silent majority is who the commissioners represent.

Cory Gardner said 'America stands no chance against our adversaries without energy abundance,' and that Valar Atomics believes it should start in Utah.

Mike Nelson said of the Valar Atomics lease, 'We weren't always sure what to ask about,' because the deal was a first for the board.

Residents argued the county didn't provide adequate and actual notice of the permit decision.

Residents claim the county did not provide adequate and actual notice of the permit decision

Stuart Adams lost primary election at least in part because of support for data center

Campus annual water use will be less than typical golf course in region

New buildings will use closed loop liquid cooling system with dry cooling requiring no water during normal operations

Chinese bots posted claims that AI data centers drive up household electricity prices and strain the grid

X identified bot farm of approximately 200,000 Chinese accounts with 200 posting about data center concerns in August 2026

Data centers are described as proliferating throughout the nation at high velocity and built in deserts, ghettos, wetlands without clear understanding of purpose, economic impacts or life expectancy.

Letter writer Ivan Weber opposes data centers being built without permits, calling for permit review and oversight.

Mark Shepherd, Clearfield Mayor, voted in April for measures to permit a controversial data center proposal in Box Elder County

Sam Lyman stated data center dividends could provide annual payments between $4,500 and $8,900 per household

Residents say no formal notice letters were sent to neighbors within 1,000 feet of the data center site, unlike standard zoning changes which require such notice.

Bitcoin Policy Institute proposed data center dividends model returning part of property tax revenue to households

GIGAWATER technology aims to capture water vapor from natural gas combustion and convert it into usable water.

Creekstone Energy has invented technology claimed to create vastly more water than the Delta Gigasite campus consumes

Clearfield Mayor Mark Shepherd said data centers are not listed as approved or acceptable in any city zone, so city has no way to approve or deny a proposal

Water capture technology remains in research and testing stage and has not yet been proven

Union electricians welcome data center boom

Non investor owned utilities raise prices when data centers enter their service areas

Rep. Jill Koford stated the state should examine the data center tax exemption issue more closely, noting the scale and rapid growth of data center investment raise legitimate questions

Tooele residents are concerned about water supply impacts from a data center near the local aquifer

Utah Inland Port Authority will not move forward with data centers until Tooele County has proper permitting, regulatory, and zoning process in place

Ford Copple, tech policy analyst at Sutherland Institute, published report entitled Building a Human Centered Digital Future: Data Center Job Creation

Sutherland Institute released report on data center economic benefits amid backlash over proposed projects

Utah Inland Port Authority stated they are not offering tax incentives for data centers and have no official plans for them in project areas

Tooele County is not ready for the data center, according to state officials.

Bryce Bird said EPA air quality standards would remain and projects must use best available control technology

Bryce Bird, director of Utah Division of Air Quality, said Utah would not change public comment requirements

Both colocation and hyperscale data centers bring short- to medium term, high paying, skilled labor construction jobs

The Sutherland Institute examined employment tied to data center development

Larger hyperscale facilities generally support more permanent workers, particularly when they operate advanced computing equipment or include their own power generation infrastructure

Tooele residents expressed concerns that tax dollars should not subsidize data center development that they believe harms the community.

Volition said they may seek a new community to build their data center due to the continued delays in Spanish Fork

Non investor owned utilities have difficulty handling new data centers and raise prices as a result

Volition executives stated they would not be drawing off the local power grid or emitting excess heat, noise, and air pollution

Brenna Williams, co founder of Box Elder Accountability Referendum, says data center economic promises are 'all smoke and mirrors'

Hiatt warned data centers coming now, especially larger ones, may have impact on power prices wholesale

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social saying data centers will serve economic self interest and national security, telling supporters to 'let Data Reign' or risk being 'backwards and poor'

The article describes data center opposition as rooted in opposition to water rationing, spikes in electrical bills, and resource plunder affecting quality of life

Ryan Cooper of The American Prospect characterizes the data center rollout as reflective of Silicon Valley arrogance by billionaires promoting AI as revolutionary and requiring trillions in spending

Maddy Oritt, University of Utah director of public finance research, says property tax rates will become volatile as equipment depreciates

Shon Hiatt, associate professor at USC, found investor owned utilities like Rocky Mountain Power experienced no effect on power prices from data center entry from 2020 to 2025

Volition would create high paying jobs and generate millions in local tax revenue

Trump warned that if Americans 'kill the Golden Goose' on data centers, 'you will have only yourselves to blame' and that China is happy about anti data center sentiment

Growing cross partisan grassroots opposition to the Stratos data center in Utah demanding agency, fairness, and accountability in development decisions

Mayor Mike Mendenhall said on social media he thought the Volition proposal could be good for the city

People from both political parties are aligned on wanting more say about how policymakers make choices about land and how resources are used

The thermal energy coming off the Stratos Project could be equivalent to 23 atomic bombs being deposited on this valley every day in the form of waste heat, potentially raising nighttime temperatures by as much as 12 degrees Fahrenheit

The project raises significant concerns regarding energy and water usage, potentially requiring billions of gallons annually in a state already facing drought conditions

Alex Kellgreen created an interactive tool called The Elephant in the Desert showing every data center operating in Utah

Robert Davies, associate professor of physics at Utah State University, calculated the project's electricity consumption at more than double what the developers suggest

Volition claims its data center would use natural gas powered fuel cells producing substantially lower emissions and heat and requiring significantly less water than traditional data centers

Communities deserve clear facts about environmental impacts before major projects are approved

CEO Jeff Chavez previously sought to build a 30 to-40 megawatt fuel cell powered data center in nearby Provo before pivoting to Spanish Fork

Residents opposed the proposal, with Tom Thomas stating residents deserve more than unsubstantiated promises and citing data centers' documented track record of water contamination, air pollution, and noise pollution

Mayor Mike Mendenhall publicly backed Volition Industries' $1 billion data center proposal for the former Fingerhut warehouse site

Many data centers already operate in Utah without public protest

Rep. Jill Koford, R Ogden, stated that the scale and rapid growth of data center investment raise legitimate questions about whether the current framework and available data remain adequate

Kristian Fors, analyst with Libertas Institute, stated 'You can't manage what you can't measure' and stressed the need for transparency and accountability in government policy

Kasia Tarczynska, who authored the Good Jobs First report, said states created tax exemptions based on smaller scale data centers from 10 to 15 years ago but the industry has changed dramatically due to artificial intelligence deployment

Author Allyson Flake Matsoso expresses concerns about data centers changing small town America, citing impacts like noise, traffic, heat and light pollution

Mona City government said they had not received any formal data center application or development requests and have not made a commitment of water, sewer, or electricity for this data center

West Jordan Mayor Dirk Burton said data centers help 'keep the taxes low for our residents and provide the services that our residents desperately need'

Cox criticized MIDA for mission creep in approving large development projects beyond military initiatives

Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians opposes the proposal citing groundwater depletion and contamination risks

Skull Valley Band sent letter of opposition to Gov. Spencer Cox but did not receive response

Spencer Cox criticized the Utah Military Installation Development Authority approval of the Stratos data center

Peak opposition to nuclear power plants in Gallup surveys was 63 percent

Gallup survey in May 2026 found 71 percent of Americans oppose construction of new data centers in their communities to support AI industry

Rep. Jon Hawkins, Utah state representative, framed the conversation around data center policy and definitions.

Sen. Daniel McCay, chair of the Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee, said he opposes using property tax to incentivize data centers.

Data centers are 63 points underwater with rural voters

Heatmap survey found data centers are 43 points underwater with Republicans, 65 points underwater with independents, and 75 points underwater with Democrats

China planning to power data centers with at least 80 percent clean energy by 2030

Called the Volition proposal an opportunity for the city and said it warrants moving forward to see if a private business can deliver on what it proposes, with guard rails in place.

O'Leary told NewsNation that the industry as a whole has screwed up in how it has explained data centers to communities

Kevin O'Leary acknowledged communication failures surrounding his proposed Stratos data center in Box Elder County, Utah

Rep. Jason Thompson is working on a bill to limit MIDA authority to within five miles of military installations

Cox said he would support legislation to regulate how much heat comes from data centers

Gov. Cox supports major reforms to the Utah Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA)

Cox said he would support legislation requiring data centers to install only closed loop systems that use less water

Tim Davis, head of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality, told lawmakers the state has 'major gaps' in regulating potential impacts of new data centers, particularly heat and noise

Cox said people need an opportunity to weigh in on data center development and local communities need a better opportunity

Gov. Cox said MIDA has had mission creep and needs major reform

Cox advocated for changes to MIDA including more involvement from the governor's office

Davis stated that the Department of Environmental Quality has not yet begun air quality permitting work for the Box Elder County Stratos project and that once it does, it will take a year just to obtain data on existing air quality before developers can apply

Tim Davis said state agencies have been discussing how to coordinate better on data center approvals

Jake Garfield, Utah Office of Energy Development Deputy Director, said adopting new water efficient technologies is necessary in a state with constrained water resources

Rep. Paul Cutler said smaller data centers don't have the outsize impact that the 100 megawatt plus data centers do

Cox said he has no problem whatsoever supporting expanded legislation to include closed loop systems that are more water efficient

Governor Spencer Cox said the process surrounding the Stratos project was not good and particularly criticized the MIDA process

Position note: Follows earlier support for Utah data center expansion, shifting in August 2026 toward calling for reform of the Military Installation Development Authority after the Stratos project controversy.

Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R Taylorsville, expressed concern about Utah giving away significant tax breaks to attract data centers while needing the jobs

Cox said he proposed changes to MIDA nearly two years ago in 2025 but they never passed

Rep. Jon Hawkins, R Pleasant Grove, chair of the Economic Development and Workforce Services Interim Committee, stated that lawmakers have received probably hundreds of emails on data centers and that it is a big concern

Cox said he would be open to requiring all future data center proposals to use closed loop cooling

Spanish Fork resident voiced concern about proper hard lined bylaws to ensure company cannot override community protections if acquired by larger corporation

House Speaker Mike Schultz said legislators are united that they do not want a state full of data centers

Cox said the approval process was not good and called for major reform of the MIDA process

Larry Jensen, speaking for the three Carbon County commissioners, told the Trust Lands Administration board that the Valar Atomics project is critical to rebuilding the county's industrial valuation and easing the property tax burden that shifted onto residents as local coal production collapsed, as the board's minutes record it.

Tim Davis, commissioner of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality, noted that no single state agency can fully approve a data center on its own and showed lawmakers a chart displaying many layers of approvals required

Jake Garfield told the Trust Lands Administration board that Valar Atomics has been a strong partner as a tenant at the San Rafael Energy Lab, and that small modular reactors offer a path for data centers to grow without adding air emissions or heavy water use, as the board's minutes record it.

Cox stated MIDA has seen mission creep from its initial responsibilities and goals

Cox said he is supportive of major reform to MIDA and will push for that reform

Cox said the Stratos Project in Box Elder County experienced incredible public pushback earlier this year

Rep. Doug Fiefia expressed concerns about who constituents should hold accountable when multiple agencies are involved in data center approvals

Governor Cox said his office should 'play a bigger role' in weighing data center projects

Cox is looking for elected officials to have more of a say in what happens with MIDA projects than they have had in the past

Rep. Doug Fiefia, R Herriman, expressed concern about who constituents could hold accountable if something falls through the cracks in a data center approval process

Jessica Wiarda, Salt Lake City resident, expressed concerns about data center effects on wildlife, especially deer, and about lack of public information on the Stratos project before officials voted on it

Volition CEO said their closed loop cooling system would only need about two Utah households' worth of water to fill

City Community Development Director Dave Anderson stated the city has done more vetting on this amendment than on anything else

Rep. Peck toured a South Jordan facility using air and fans for cooling instead of water

Teresa Pierce, resident near Fingerhut distribution center, expressed concern about noise, emissions impact

Physicist Robert Davies of Utah State University estimated the project could reach 16 gigawatts at full capacity

Sen. McCay said he does not feel that property tax should be used as much to incentivize data centers

Volition CEO Jeff Chavez stated the company generates their own power using natural gas powered fuel cells that do not connect to the existing power grid

Volition CEO Jeff Chavez said the proposed facility would use two households' worth of water to fill when first starting operations, then only one household's worth annually

Councilman Shane Marshall emphasized that getting guardrails right is important

Volition proposed to contribute at least $500,000 annually to a community fund for addiction recovery, food security and housing support

Councilman Kevin Oyler stated he takes the issue seriously and is doing his homework despite having many questions

Sen. McCay said Utah is ahead of most of the country in data center policy

Rep. Nicholeen Peck noted volatility in property tax revenue due to depreciation of assets within data centers

Volition said cooling systems are located indoors to mitigate noise impacts

Rep. Hawkins said lawmakers are discussing current state policy on data centers and how to define data centers moving forward

Rep. Jim Dunnigan raised concerns about air quality and airshed impacts from data centers

Property owner John Bankhead stated he has received many offers for the warehouse site and considers Volition a better option than a distribution center that would increase truck traffic

Volition CEO Jeff Chavez said their data center project would generate about 250 megawatts of power and use an existing distribution center of about 28 acres

Volition plans to create a community fund contributing at least $500,000 per year for addiction recovery, food security, housing support and other community needs

Residents noted that the proposed data center location is in the heart of the town, not on the outskirts

Residents expressed concerns over noise pollution, water resource impacts, location over a fault line, and whether the facility would be a test site

Jeff Chavez, Volition CEO, stated data center developers should reuse existing infrastructure instead of buying thousands of acres

Workforce shortages, not funding or ideas, may be the real constraint on energy project delivery in Utah

A resident stated that neighborhoods are not interested in being a test site for Volition's unproven technology

Volition's plan includes no diesel generation, a dry cooled system, and a noise limit

Teresa Pierce, Spanish Fork resident, expressed concern that data centers should not be built in residential backyards regardless of need

Residents expressed concerns that Volition has not provided sufficient data or evidence to support claims of minimal community impact

Facility would generate its own power with natural gas fuel cells, never connect to the grid, use closed loop cooling with a one time 500,000 gal fill and 250,000 gal per year, and request no tax breaks.

A resident raised concerns that the data center location is over a fault line and questioned earthquake safety

Jack Urquhart, Spanish Fork communications manager, explained the municipal code amendment is needed because the developer proposes generating its own power

Resident Sarah Stevenson pleaded with the council to listen to residents' concerns, not just hear them

Volition officials stated their data center will not strain local resources due to being self powered, will be in an existing building, and will have reduced emissions and increased property tax revenue

Volition officials stated their data center will not strain local resources due to being self powered, will have no diesel generation, is dry cooled, and has noise limits

A resident stated that data centers have promised minimal water use then sued for more water access

O'Leary said 'I have no interest in causing an environmental disaster on my legacy. That's never going to happen.'

O'Leary said he would produce plans for a one GB facility showing heat profile, light, noise and water use

O'Leary said the data center industry has not communicated what it does to communities

Kevin O'Leary said 'We really screwed this up. We have not communicated what we do.'

Dr. Robert Davies said the project at proposed scale would consume as much power as two states of Utah or three New York Cities

O'Leary said he intends to submit permit applications

O'Leary confirmed 'Am I going to build this data center? The answer is yes.'

After public outcry, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams called on O'Leary to cut the scale by 75 percent

Kevin O'Leary said his company screwed up in communicating the Stratos project

Tooele County residents voiced opposition to a potential data center, urging decision makers to do the right thing.

Dr. Brian Moench, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, called for a one year moratorium on data centers throughout the state

Amy Lawson said residents want to preserve Tooele County's quiet, peace, and land for future generations

Maddy Oritt, director of public finance research at Gardner Institute, said careful project specific analysis can help communities maximize benefits of data center investment while minimizing unintended tax shifts

Brittany Lopez, Assistant County Manager, said the county is establishing land use to ensure responsible planning and smart growth if data centers are proposed

New data center facilities would likely provide initial property tax relief through increased property valuation

State Rep. Jill Koford sponsored the bill to provide transparency and reporting mechanism for data centers

Research fellow Rebecca Kilberg was one of three Aspen Institute fellows who produced the report that led to the water transparency law

Data centers present both opportunities and challenges for Utah's property tax system

Three fellows at the Aspen Institute's Aspen Policy Academy undertook research into data center growth in Utah and the Great Salt Lake water level as part of the 2024 Science and Technology Policy Fellowship

Personal property taxes from data centers could create a boomerang or yo yo effect of initial tax decreases followed by offsetting future increases

O'Leary called criticisms of Project Stratos misinformation.

Kevin O'Leary, investor and Shark Tank star, backs Project Stratos AI data center proposal.

Volition's data centers produce zero draw on Spanish Fork's municipal power grid and use no local utility power

The fuel cell technology generates electricity through an electrochemical reaction with no combustion, flame, or fumes

Computer chips transform electricity into heat, creating a large thermal output that should be regulated as heavy industrial use

Volition is not requesting any additional water rights from the city

Volition will include enforceable covenants in the development agreement covering water caps, noise limits, no grid connection, and no diesel

The proposed data center facility is a good reuse of the existing building and resolves water and heat concerns

Volition commits to providing more than 500,000 dollars per year in direct community contributions and educational partnerships

Transparency from the developer and rigorous questioning by the planning commission changed resident sentiment toward supporting the project

Data centers pose environmental and fire concerns and benefit wealthy entities at the expense of local residents

Converting the existing industrial building to a data center reduces traffic from 3,500 trucks per month to 100-200 employee car trips per day with zero heavy truck traffic

Enforceable contractual guardrails and community benefit agreements are necessary to protect clean air and water for future data center projects

Volition received a New Minor Source air quality permit approval from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality

Volition Industries proposes a data center inside Spanish Fork City powered entirely on site without connection to the city electric grid

The proposed 250 megawatt facility would produce more than double the peak power draw of the entire city of Spanish Fork

Kevin O'Leary said work on the Stratos data center project is 'full steam ahead'

Utah's Military Installation Development Authority said it is on pause, awaiting permit requests for the Stratos project

Rep. Paul Cutler said artificial intelligence has changed data center size, impact and policy questions, and that lawmakers need to think about things differently.

Sowby said the approval process for data centers depends largely on whether a project is proposed within city limits, outside incorporated areas, or involving state and federal agencies.

BYU civil engineering professor Robert Sowby stated there is no single person or agency responsible for approving a large scale data center.

It is much easier to prevent data centers from being built than to hold them accountable later.

There are deep concerns about water usage with data center projects.

Utah Inland Port Authority fully supports the Tooele County data center moratorium

Governor Cox committed to slowing down data center permits and requiring careful evaluation of environmental impacts

The proposed ordinance is about creating rules before a company submits a proposal, not in relation to any specific data center or project

Palandjian said Stratos will not be a net negative to the Great Salt Lake

Palandjian said the data center will cool by recirculating water with little to no ongoing water use

Paul Palandjian, O'Leary Digital CEO, states Stratos will use no more than 1,800 acre feet of water annually at full scale

Feras Batarseh, Virginia Tech AI lab director, expresses skepticism that available technologies will save as much water as O'Leary team claims

Feras Batarseh, Virginia Tech professor and AI lab director, said groundwater is connected to surface water and ten percent of the Great Salt Lake's water comes from groundwater

Curtis said the industry has failed to properly articulate why data centers are needed in the United States and why they should not be built overseas

Curtis said the Stratos Project is a massive data center campus that sparked opposition in the state because of its magnitude and quick approval process through the Military Installation Development Authority

Sen. John Curtis said he is pursuing federal standards to help mitigate distrust around data center projects

Curtis said he wants to work on bringing reliable, predictable measuring techniques at the federal level so the public can have access to standard metrics to determine whether projects are sustainable

Curtis referred to uncertainty about whether data center power is behind the meter or connected to the grid, citing the Stratos Project as an example

Fox News journalist Maria Bartiromo apologized on behalf of Fox News on June 26 for airing unsubstantiated claims about Chinese ties to data center opponents

Kevin O'Leary clarified in a June 25 social media post that he has no evidence that Alliance for a Better Utah or Elevate Strategies are funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party

Utah Senator Todd Weiler apologized on social media on June 30, saying he was duped after posting earlier claims about Chinese funding of Alliance for a Better Utah

Heat generated by the Stratos data center complex could create a local heat island that raises daytime temperatures by five degrees Fahrenheit and nighttime temperatures by twenty eight degrees Fahrenheit

Utah Senate President Stuart Adams praised O'Leary's concessions, saying they address concerns and reduce effective project footprint by 75 percent, but opponent Brenna Williams expressed skepticism that Thursday's announcement represents meaningful change.

O'Leary said the project will not be the largest data center in the world