Box Elder County commissioners are set to vote Monday on the Stratos Project, a hyperscale data center and energy campus in rural northern Utah that, at full buildout, would consume 9 gigawatts of power - more than double Utah's current average statewide electricity use of roughly 4 GW. The three-member commission will decide whether to approve the project backed by the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) and investor Kevin O'Leary, after postponing a decision the prior week amid pressure from protesters and state leaders calling for a faster timeline. The proposal would place a large data center and energy campus on about 40,000 acres of unincorporated land in Box Elder County, centered in Hansel Valley.
Background
MIDA unveiled plans on April 24 for the hyperscale data centers in rural Utah, describing the effort as its largest project to date. MIDA is a state entity created to serve the military and promote economic development. After MIDA's initial presentation, commissioners voted to table formal consent and passed an amended resolution to explore impacts and benefits while collecting public input and legal review. Speakers during the public comment period raised concerns about traffic on narrow rural roads, possible aquifer and water-quality impacts from brine processing, long-term effects on agricultural land values, and whether the county had adequate time and information.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox has pushed back against public opposition. Cox stated that "there's a lot of really bad information out there about data centers," adding that "people are operating off of models and technologies that have changed drastically over the past few years, especially when it comes to water usage."
Project Details
The project is being developed by O'Leary Digital, the infrastructure arm of Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary. It would span 40,000 acres of private land plus 1,200 acres of military and state-owned property. Phase 1 alone calls for approximately 3 GW of generation capacity, with full buildout reaching 9 GW-all produced on-site through a connection to the Ruby Pipeline, a 680-mile interstate natural gas line crossing northern Utah on its route from Wyoming to Oregon.
MIDA executive director Paul Morris told county commissioners the facility "will not take one electron" from the existing grid and could eventually feed surplus power back to it. Project representatives said the facility would rely on a closed-loop cooling system that recycles water rather than continuously consuming it.
Not all energy observers accept the off-grid framing at face value. Logan Mitchell, a climate scientist and energy advocate with Utah Clean Energy, said that "even if this project isn't tied to the electricity grid, it's still going to be consuming an enormous amount of gas," adding that such consumption could put upward pressure on regional natural gas prices.
On fiscal terms, MIDA cut the project's energy use tax from its standard 6% to 0.5% and agreed to rebate 80% of the property tax revenue back to O'Leary Digital to attract hyperscale cloud operators. Under the proposed agreement, Box Elder County could receive at least $30 million annually during early phases and up to $108 million per year at full buildout. MIDA projects that state sales tax receipts from the data centers alone would reach $250 million per year. The development is also expected to create 2,000 permanent jobs in the county following construction.
MIDA would collect an estimated $49 million a year in revenue from the project, which the authority says would replace aging infrastructure on Hill Air Force Base and support "energy resilience and mission-critical systems tied to military operations."
Outlook
As of the scheduled vote, no hyperscaler tenant has been publicly named. The commission's decision carries implications beyond Box Elder County, potentially setting a precedent for how rural local governments in the West handle large-scale, energy-intensive infrastructure projects that bypass conventional grid interconnection. If approved, the project would become one of the largest off-grid power generation and compute campuses in the United States. Demands on the Ruby Pipeline and potential regional gas price effects will require ongoing monitoring by energy planners and regulators.
