The limits of top-down expansion

The race to build AI infrastructure is running into a limit that has nothing to do with chips or power: the consent of the communities where campuses are built. Scott’s article argues that data centers need a social license to operate, and that approvals which skip local decision-makers are fragile, however quickly they arrive.

Project Stratos, a proposed 9 GW campus in Box Elder County, advanced through a state authority whose members are not elected, rather than through the county. That route set aside local control over land, water and taxes. The backlash that followed became a defining issue in Utah’s June primary, where it cost the Senate President and local officials who had backed the project their seats. The Governor then issued an executive order requiring more transparency, environmental review and protection for ratepayers.

Over the same period, several large campuses were permitted with far less controversy because their developers worked through county officials. The article points to the Delta Gigasite and the Joule Energy Campus in Millard County, Tract’s Pole Canyon campus in Eagle Mountain and Pronghorn Development’s Antelope Data Campus in Iron County, which together represent more than 16 GW of planned capacity.

Treat county approval as the main path to building rather than an obstacle to route around. Show residents the local benefit in jobs, tax revenue and workforce opportunity early, in terms they can check, and answer concerns about water, power and rates before opposition organizes. Speed that depends on bypassing local government can be reversed at the next election.

Antelope Data Campus, where Alpen built the economic case and led community engagement through county approval, and data center policy advisory for the Utah legislative committee.