A Utah knowledge heart proposed by Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary is anticipated to be huge.
The venture—known as Stratos but in addition known as Marvel Valley—can be 40,000 acres, or roughly double the dimensions of Manhattan. It might eat as much as 9 GW of energy, which is more than double your entire state’s common electrical energy use.
That’s, if it ever will get constructed.
Proper now, the truth of a 9 GW Utah knowledge heart doesn’t appear all that more likely to Olivia Wang, a analysis analyst at Sightline Local weather, an power transition intelligence agency.
Or no less than, she says, not “at something shut” to the dimensions at present being talked about.
“There isn’t a precedent for a developer pulling off an off-grid venture of this dimension but,” Wang says by way of electronic mail, “and the venture has not one of the constructing blocks in place that will make us suppose in any other case.”
Sightline Local weather has analyzed proposed knowledge heart initiatives beforehand. The corporate has greater than 1,000 hyperscale knowledge heart initiatives around the globe in its pipeline database, and scores them on sure elements to foretell in the event that they’ll really get constructed.
Proper now, Wang says, the mannequin places the probability of Marvel Valley really materializing at “roughly 15%.”
‘Marvel Valley comes up quick’
Sightline Local weather appears at elements together with how far alongside the info heart venture is in improvement, if energy has been sourced and financing secured, whether or not any tenants have signed on, and so forth.
“Marvel Valley comes up quick on each single one in the intervening time,” Wang says.
Regardless of reporting by The Logic that stated building would begin this yr, with a primary working part by 2027, there isn’t any building exercise but. The Stratos Project website at present says that Part 1 building will happen from 2026 to 2028.
The total buildout, together with the 9 GW of capability and about 90 knowledge heart buildings, is listed on the timeline below “2030+.”
Although O’Leary instructed the Desert News that “we’ve bought tenants knocking on our door,” there’s not but public details about any tenants signed on.
Wang provides that, to her information, no energy contracts have been signed and financing hasn’t been secured.
O’Leary’s firm, O’Leary Digital, shaped a three way partnership with developer West GenCo on the venture in February 2026, however that developer doesn’t appear to have a previous monitor document of delivering knowledge heart infrastructure. (Quick Firm couldn’t discover a web site or LinkedIn web page for West GenCo, and even mentions of it separate from O’Leary.)
O’Leary Digital didn’t reply to a request for feedback about these elements or timeline.
Undertaking dates are getting tougher to belief
These are elementary steps to getting a knowledge heart constructed that thus far appear to be lacking. However there are additionally “structural headwinds” that Marvel Valley faces which have stalled all kinds of knowledge initiatives beforehand.
Although the info heart increase, spurred by the increasing use of AI, doesn’t appear to be slowing down, not each venture is more likely to materialize.
A Sightline Local weather report from February, authored by Wang, estimated that 30% to 50% of the 2026 pipeline is “unlikely to return on-line earlier than the top of the yr.”
“Projected supply dates are getting tougher to belief,” the report reads. “In 2025, 26% of anticipated capability slipped, and one other 10% of initiatives pushed again their business operation dates with out a lot discover.”
Energy is likely one of the largest bottlenecks. For Marvel Valley particularly, the venture plans to run fully off-grid, however Wang notes that no air allow has been filed with the Utah Division of Environmental High quality.
“Builders want to watch air high quality for a full yr earlier than they will even submit an software,” she famous, and the division commissioner has instructed the Standard-Examiner that it might take two years for the Stratos improvement to get these approvals.
“That makes O’Leary’s claim that the primary gigawatt might be on-line inside two years troublesome to sq. with primary math,” she provides.
Knowledge heart opposition drives cancellations
The subsequent huge headwind is the rising knowledge heart opposition.
This opposition isn’t completely new. Between March and June of 2025, 20 knowledge heart initiatives, representing about $98 billion in investments, have been blocked or delayed, in keeping with Knowledge Heart Watch. There have been a number of circumstances during which native opposition was reported to have performed some position.
However it isn’t slowing down. A Gallup poll from Might 13 discovered that seven in 10 People oppose establishing AI knowledge facilities of their areas; 48% of People are “strongly opposed.”
Marvel Valley particularly has been the supply of a lot native rivalry. Residents have demonstrated towards the venture in particular person, and its water rights software was pulled after Utahns filed nearly 4,000 protests towards the applying.
“A number of cite considerations about Utah’s drought and the declining Nice Salt Lake,” The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Opposition “of this scale” has been driving venture cancellations nationwide, Wang says. “We’ve got tracked over 40 new moratorium proposals throughout the U.S. in simply the previous two months.”
Wang isn’t the one one who thinks Marvel Valley could not really come to fruition.
Tech author Ed Zitron has noted that “No one has constructed a 1GW knowledge heart,” so he doubts that O’Leary might construct a 9GW one (or “do something apart from create one other scandal and lose a bunch of individuals’s cash,” he wrote).
Zitron has stated it’s troublesome to even get a way of how much data center capacity hyperscalers are literally constructing. To him, this adds evidence to the concept the AI knowledge heart increase is basically only a bubble.
