Orem, Utah – October 21st, 2026
Utah is home to 48 operational data centers, with at least 7 more on the way. Data centers aren’t exactly new to our state; in fact, data centers have been a method of mass digital storage in Utah for the last 25 years. In more recent years, with developments in AI, there has been a market for massive scale data centers and a fair share of discourse.
Commercial and enterprise data centers are what’s most common in Utah. Commercial centers usually sell services externally and enterprise centers are solely used by the corporation who built them. Both types are a bit more self-contained and use less energy, on average about 1-10 megawatts, and we are now seeing a surge in hyperscale campuses, due to their popularity for their capacity to train AI models. They are much larger than your average data center and can have electricity usage of up to 7 gigawatts (equivalent to 7,000 megawatts, the average home uses around 10 megawatts in a year).
7 gigawatts is the projected electricity use by the Stratos project, the massive 40,000-acre campus proposed by Kevin O’Leary set to be built in Box Elder County. Following this proposal, Utah residents quickly brought up concerns about environmental impact and water usage. According to the official FAQ page for Stratos on Box Elder County’s government website accusations of excessive water use is exaggerated, stating “Claims that it will drain drinking water or the Great Salt Lake are rumors”, And they even go on to suggest an anticipated 30-million-dollar annual revenue from the center to show its worth. Despite these assertions, Utahns are still not on board.
The Stratos Project is close to getting started–the land is bought and being prepared for development–but it still requires building and environmental permits before being able to break ground.
The land for the center has all been brought in to prepare for building but, as of now, the project is still on hold as officials wait for the proper environmental and building permits. Despite these major pushes for grander and costly data centers, there have been more regulations put in effect to keep excessive building regulated. Earlier this year, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex introduced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act to halt construction on massive scale data centers to preserve energy, address environmental concerns, and mitigate job loss.
Conserve Utah Valley, a volunteer-based organization focused on conserving land and water in Utah Valley is directed by Carol-Lyn Jardine talks about an amendment update being brought to the Utah County Planning Commission. The update would require regulations regarding data center construction. The basic goal behind this amendment is to better evaluate whether a data center would be better suited for locations rather than haphazard accelerated building.
Jardine says “What’s happening right now is Utah County is saying, ‘wow, there’s a lot of data center proposals that come before us. Could we set a base level of requirements that a data center project would have to comply with in order to get approved for moving forward?’ Instead they would say, well, if it fits into this, then great, it can go forward for review. But if it doesn’t fit into this, don’t even submit a plan.”
This amendment is important as it brings to light both environmental and zoning concerns, Jardine goes on to say “There were data centers that were being proposed that would have been right very close to the shoreline of Utah Lake. That’s probably not a great spot to put a data center. Not just because of the potential water impact, but because we’re trying to preserve and protect that area. But, you know, there are going to be other sites where data centers aren’t necessarily as concerning.”
We hear a lot about the water usage concerns for data centers, there’s also concern about their carbon emissions. Data center emissions currently make up 2% of the global carbon footprint, but this number is increasing steadily with the rise in developments. Data centers put out a massive amount of carbon emissions by running off the electrical grid, which can be a major pollutant.
There was a recent proposal written (notably with contributions from a UVU professor in computer science, Ting Cao) that suggests ways to minimize the data center’s carbon output. This report even calls out claims that supposedly “green” data centers are still harmful to the environment, “Though green data centers claim they are zero-carbon data centers, eventually that is a myth… data centers are the cause of massive heat emission. Apart from wasting billions of dollars in meeting the energy demand, data centers are one of the true factors behind climate change.” This report seeks to minimize the data center emissions with methods such as geographical load balancing and scheduling policies.
Leaders of tech companies continue to claim the amount of water used is greatly exaggerated, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated how “For every 38,000 ChatGPT queries, that is the same amount of water used in the production of one single almond in California.” But research from environmentalists suggests otherwise.
Lawrence Berkley National Labs calculated 800 billion liters of water used by data centers in 2023. While this doesn’t compare to public water usage, which is around 40 billion gallons daily, this is still a massive amount to take away from more important uses. Particularly in dryer states like Utah, which has one of the lowest water withdrawals. The report from Lawrence Berkley states “In regions with constrained supplies, data center development may require long-term water supply agreements or the acquisition of water rights, raising important legal and equity considerations.” Presenting how water use is a valid concern, and legislation and control over this is incredibly important in keeping the environment safe.
A geography and environmental professor at UVU and a member of the Utah Lake Authority Board, Hilary Hungerford, raised concern about transparency with water usage, “These data centers public reporting requirements are pretty low. A lot of times they’ve negotiated with the counties to have a non-disclosure agreement… a lot of them don’t have to publicly report, which I don’t think is a good thing. The community should be able to see what’s happening with their resources.” Taking the Stratos Project for example, its widespread presence and proximity to The Great Salt lake may disrupt birds who use the lake as a stop in their migration.
Data centers are clearly a divisive topic; a small poll showed that 88.9% of UVU students are not in support of data centers. It’s crucial to stay educated on this topic to fully understand the weight behind the development of data centers. There is much being done to mitigate their rise. While there are some clear benefits and uses for them, keeping in mind the economic and environmental impact is unavoidable.
