Proposed World’s Largest AI Data Center in Utah May Dump 23 Atomic Bombs Worth of Heat Each Day

Kevin O’Leary’s Stratos Project promises power, jobs and a fierce fight over water.

In a dry valley north of the Great Salt Lake, Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame wants to build an AI data center covering more land than many American cities.

The Stratos Project would sprawl across more than 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) in Utah’s Box Elder County and demand about 9 gigawatts of power—much more electricity than the entire state currently uses. Its boosters call it a leap toward American AI supremacy. Its opponents see something more alarming: a fossil-fueled computing complex beside a shrinking lake, in a desert state already fighting over every acre-foot of water.

“Messing Around”

At its core, Stratos plans to pair an immense server campus with its own power supply, gas access, and room to expand across Box Elder County.

Kevin O’Leary, the venture capitalist known from Shark Tank, has become the project’s public face. He has framed Stratos as part of a global contest over AI and national security.

“I don’t think there’s a bigger site in the world than this,” O’Leary told Fox News. “It shows the Chinese and the rest of the world we are not messing around, we are going to get this done, move it forward and provide the compute power to our AI companies that defend the country.”

The multi-billion dollar Stratos AI data center project in Utah is spearheaded by Kevin O’Leary’s O’Leary Ventures in close partnership with local energy developer West GenCo LLC, led by co-founder Austin Pritchett. The massive, national security-framed initiative is further enabled by the Utah Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), which granted the project fast-tracked zoning and tax incentives, alongside major industrial partners like Tallgrass Energy, Gensler, and Clayco.

The first phase is projected to cost more than $4 billion, according to Utah Money Watch. Construction could take years, and Stratos still needs environmental and building permits. But Box Elder County commissioners have already approved the project, and Gov. Spencer Cox has supported it while promising stricter oversight after public backlash.

The Heat and Water Problem

Developers say Stratos would not rely on Utah’s existing electric grid. Instead, it would build its own power plant, likely using gas from the Ruby Pipeline, which crosses the region.

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That plan may ease fears about household power bills. It does not solve the problem of heat.

Robert Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University, has estimated that the project would create a total thermal load of about 16 gigawatts.

That thermal load would be “the equivalent of about 23 atom bombs worth of energy dumped into this local environment every single day,” Davies told The Verge. “You’re trying to cool hot radiators by blowing hot air over them.”

The facility would continuously release an extraordinary amount of heat into one desert valley.

One preliminary estimate suggests daytime warming of 2°F to 5°F and nighttime warming of 8°F to 12°F, while Davies has warned that some scenarios could push nighttime warming as high as 28°F.

“The thermal load from the proposed Stratos project is extreme,” Davies said, according to The Guardian. “Of course it has effects. One of those effects is this: this facility imposes substantial drying on a watershed and ecosystem already in active collapse.”

For desert life, warm nights can be especially dangerous. Cooler nights allow moisture to condense, giving plants and animals small but crucial pulses of water. If the valley stays too warm, that rhythm may break.

“That’s the difference between Utah’s semi-arid climate and the Sahara Desert,” Ben Abbott, an ecology professor at Brigham Young University, told Grist. “This would absolutely change the landscape.”

The Water Problem

County officials have said Stratos will use a “closed-loop” water system and will not divert water from homes, farms, or the Great Salt Lake. But critics say the project’s full water needs remain unclear.

An early proposal sought to use water from Salt Wells Spring, historically used by Bar H Ranch for irrigation. Nearly 4,000 people objected. The application was later withdrawn, nullifying those complaints, which residents had paid $15 each to file.

The developers still plan to seek water for the project, likely from another spring in Hansel Valley. That means residents who already paid to object may have to file—and pay—all over again.

West GenCo says it has lined up possible water sources: about 3.7 million cubic meters (3,000 acre-feet) in on-site water rights, plus another 12.3 million cubic meters (10,000 acre-feet) from nearby Snowville if needed. Combined, that is enough water to cover the basic needs of more than 20,000 Utah households.

O’Leary has dismissed fears about the lake.

“We’re not gonna drain the Great Salt Lake. That’s ridiculous. We are gonna create incremental jobs,” he wrote on X.

But environmental groups see Stratos as a threat beside an already wounded ecosystem. Agriculture, irrigation, and other uses have diverted water from the Great Salt Lake and helped shrink it. As the Great Salt Lake shrinks, more of its lakebed is exposed to the wind. Scientists and health officials have warned that dust from that dry lakebed can carry pollutants toward nearby communities along the Wasatch Front.

The lakebed sediments can contain arsenic and other pollutants that have built up over time, making the dust hazardous.

The Local Backlash

Stratos has turned Box Elder County into a proving ground for the AI boom.

Residents worry about water, air quality, emissions, noise, heat, and whether promised jobs will justify the disruption. O’Leary has accused opponents of being paid outsiders—of course.

“There are professional protesters that are paid by somebody, I don’t know who,” he said in a video posted to X. “They’re being bused in.”

Local opponents rejected that charge.

“Instead of speaking with us, Kevin O’Leary went on social media saying we were out-of-state, paid protesters, and we don’t want people from out-of-state making decisions for us,” said Brenna Williams, lead sponsor of a referendum effort, according to The Guardian. “The only thing he’s right about is that we don’t want him, an out-of-state billionaire, making decisions for us.”

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Her group, Box Elder Accountability Referendum, is trying to reverse the county approval. It must collect 5,422 signatures from registered county voters within 45 days to put the question on the November ballot.

Cox has tried to balance development with public concern. “Industry is our state’s motto,” he said. “And in our pursuit of economic strength, we must always ensure that development is thoughtful and in line with Utah values.”

The project’s carbon footprint could also be immense. Utah Clean Energy estimated Stratos could produce 30.2 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, increasing Utah’s emissions by roughly 55 to 64%.

Stratos has turned the AI boom into a local land-use fight with unusually high stakes: who gets the water, who absorbs the heat, who lives with the emissions, and who decides whether a rural Utah valley should host one of the largest computing complexes on Earth.