What uses more electricity than the ENTIRE state of Utah?

Photo above - artist's conception of the upcoming "world's largest data center", in Utah. Soaring eagle not included in actual specs and blueprints. Or is that a condor?

Dateline – Box Elder County, Utah. 40,000 acres (not a misprint, that's 60 square miles) will be dedicated to planet earth's largest data center. It will need its own electric supply – 9 gigawatts worth - because it uses twice as much electricity as the entire state of Utah. This data center is getting generous tax breaks of course and will allegedly employ 2,000 people when complete, which I find hard to believe. (See link below.)

The only thing the article DOESN’T tell us is which tech firm the “Wonder Valley” data center is being built for. Amazon? Meta? Microsoft? Google? In any case, if this data center is in Utah, it will probably need the planet’s largest air conditioner to keep from burning itself to a crisp. The average July temperature is 94 degrees.

Okay, we’ve got the gigawatts and A/C covered? What about the water supply? Data centers need A LOT of water. I visited the Utah Division of Water Resources website to find out whether rivers or groundwater will be involved. I immediately ran into a headline “Utah residents told to stop outdoor watering as supply reaches critical levels”. In any case, the Sevier River is Utah’s go-to source for fresh water. At 400 miles long it doesn’t even rank among America’s top 50 rivers. Maybe the hyperscale Wonder Valley data center could use recycled brown water from households' waste pipes?

Even if the corporate customer of “Wonder Valley” data center prefers to remain anonymous, the chief investor is happy to be front and center. It’s Kevin O’Leary, one of the impresarios on the Shark Tank television show. Kevin now calls himself “Mr. Wonderful”, and he made his big screen film debut recently in the Timothy Chalamet film “Marty Supreme” as . . . what else? . . . an insanely wealthy and clueless investor.

I want to take a step back from casting shade on Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank and all the other peripheral players. Let’s stay focused on the basic premise: Where will the water and electricity come from, and how was this approved? Box Elder has no county council. It is administered by a “commissioner”, a sheriff, a county clerk, a county attorney, a tax assessor, and a treasurer. It’s not clear whether the 18,000 adult residents of the county had much input, or even awareness of the world's largest data center being built in their back yard.

But I bet whoever owns those 40,000 acres of land involved became an instant millionaire.

I’m just sayin’ . . .


https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/04/25/hyperscale-data-center-may-be/