The Daily Dig
Box Elder County commissioners unanimously approved the Stratos Project on May 4, greenlighting a planned 9-gigawatt AI data center campus on 40,000 acres of unincorporated land in northwest Utah. The development includes a dedicated on-site natural gas power plant to meet the facility's energy demands.
Backers say building their own generation is intentional. Data centers in other markets have pushed electricity costs higher for nearby residents, and the Stratos team says on-site power sidesteps that problem entirely.
The project area includes private land whose owners have signed on, plus military and state-owned land, according to documents cited by CNN. The project carries backing from Utah's Military Installation Development Authority, a body created by the state legislature to support defense related infrastructure development.
Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank investor serving as a public face of the project, says the facility will prioritize clients doing defense adjacent work, including U.S. government agencies and major tech contractors.
Developers have already put approximately $20 million into the project and plan to pursue letters of intent from prospective tenants in the coming weeks. From there, they will seek broader investment to fund a buildout O'Leary estimates could exceed $100 billion over time.
Construction phase job projections vary across sources. O'Leary has cited roughly 10,000, while the developer's own representative told the Salt Lake Tribune the figure is closer to 4,000 temporary positions. The 2,000 permanent jobs number has been cited consistently across all reporting.
Early site work is expected as soon as fall 2026. The project faces active community opposition, with hundreds turning out to the county meeting over concerns about water usage near the shrinking Great Salt Lake, power plant emissions, and the pace of the approval process.
A group of Box Elder County voters has since filed to place a referendum on the November ballot to overturn the commission's decision. The application is under legal review and would need more than 5,000 signatures to qualify.
Snapshot:
Project Name: Stratos Project
Location: Box Elder County, northwest Utah (unincorporated land, Hansel Valley)
Campus Size: 40,000 acres
Data Center Capacity: 9 gigawatts (planned, phased)
Power Source: Dedicated on-site natural gas plant
Sector: AI / defense-adjacent data infrastructure, per O'Leary's stated target client base
Public Face / Project Authority: Kevin O'Leary; Utah Military Installation Development Authority
Land Ownership: Private (owners signed on), military, and state-owned
Investment to Date: ~$20 million
Projected Total Cost: $100 billion+ (long-range estimate, per O'Leary)
Construction-Phase Jobs: ~4,000 temporary positions (per developer representative, Salt Lake Tribune); O'Leary has cited ~10,000
Permanent Jobs: ~2,000
Timeline: Early site work expected as soon as fall 2026
Phasing: First phase capped at 1.5 GW; full 9 GW buildout planned over multiple phases
Approval Status: Approved by Box Elder County Commission, May 4, 2026; Gov. Cox has directed phased approvals with clear metrics, DEQ air permit review, and DNR water and cooling oversight before construction proceeds
Community Opposition: Active; referendum application filed, 5,000+ signatures required to qualify
TheJobWalk Thoughts
A 9-gigawatt campus gets built in phases, not all at once. The first phase is capped at 1.5 gigawatts, with future permits contingent on meeting clear metrics set by the state. That means the real near-term construction opportunity is in the early civil scopes: site prep, mass grading, and utility infrastructure. Subs and suppliers active in the Utah and Intermountain West markets should be tracking this now.
The natural gas plant is a substantial parallel construction scope. No delivery model has been publicly confirmed, but a project of this type could potentially follow an EPC-style structure with its own trade packages running alongside the data center work. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the developer is also footing the bill for all roads, sewer lines, stormwater systems, and other public utility infrastructure within the project area. That is a meaningful additional scope beyond the data center and power plant themselves.
The approval path has more gates ahead than the county vote suggested. Gov. Cox has directed the DEQ to review all air permits and the DNR to conduct a full review before construction can begin, with a requirement that the most environmentally sensitive cooling technology is used. Any GC or sub considering early positioning on this project should be tracking that regulatory sequencing closely before committing resources.
