What Josh found throughout the course of his reporting was that the way this data center came together — how it was planned, how it was announced and approved, and how local residents were kept in the dark — ultimately created a political firestorm so severe it stopped Stratos in its tracks. The story is also a larger look at the AI industry's infrastructure boom, the bipartisan backlash to that buildout, and how the tech industry is running into the one obstacle it can't seem to spend its way out of: local democracy.
Everyone was racing — the developers against other speculators, O'Leary against rival projects chasing the same few tenants, Utah against other states, the United States against China — right up until they slammed into the residents of Box Elder County they had neglected to tell. The very county commissioners whose unanimous approval O'Leary touted on Fox were officially told the project was coming only five weeks before they were expected to vote on it.
1w ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
