Dear Neighbor,
Today’s artificial intelligence boom is driving rapid growth in facilities that house thousands of networked computer servers, data storage systems, and networking equipment. Communities throughout our state and nation are seeing a growing wave of development proposals, including right here in our area.
These structures are not only essential to help us meet our ever-growing appetite for all things computer driven, but also could provide municipalities with an infusion of tax revenue beyond anything we’ve ever seen. This is a win-win situation that somehow has become controversial.
The reasons I’m hearing for opposition simply don’t fly once you cut through the rhetoric. This is a discussion I’ve had many times the last couple of years, and it caused me to wonder: Where is this bad PR really coming from? Who would not want us to build more power in our state and nation? Why is there opposition to revenue that could be a lifeline to our local tax base by backfilling major Sherco losses?
“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O'Leary may have some answers. He recently shared some rather interesting thoughts on this issue because he is part of a group that is running into similar resistance as it looks to build one of the world’s largest AI data centers in rural Utah.
That project would bring major jobs, enormous tax revenue, and make the U.S. more competitive in artificial intelligence. But some Utah residents are pushing back and O’Leary said much of the public backlash has been driven by what he calls misinformation and lies through coordinated online activism, rather than facts about the project itself.
In fact, O’Leary said his team saw an enormous surge in coordinated social media attacks involving bots, fake accounts, and repeated anti-project messaging, after his Utah project became public. After hiring forensic analysts and data scientists, O’Leary said investigators traced heavy activity to nonprofit groups, activist organizations, and funding networks connected to individuals already under federal scrutiny for alleged ties to Chinese Communist Party influence operations.
One more time: Investigators say people in the communist China orbit are flooding American social media with anti-data center misinformation.
O’Leary said public IRS filings and digital tracking data showed money and messaging flowing through activist organizations that oppose energy expansion and large infrastructure projects across the country. He said investigations have found that the same names and organizations repeatedly appear whenever new power plants, transmission systems, or AI data centers are proposed in the U.S.
In his words:
“I'm not suggesting it,” O’Leary said. “It's an irrefutable fact. This is IRS 990 filings with the exact dollars and dates from exactly where it came from.”
He said his team compiled roughly 90 pages of evidence, including IP addresses, financial filings, and digital activity patterns, and shared the information with federal law enforcement and contacts inside the White House. O’Leary stressed that he is not speculating about foreign influence, but instead believes the connections are supported by public financial records and forensic analysis.
Here’s the thing: This issue is not simply about one data center in Utah, or even in Minnesota for that matter. This is about America’s ability to build the infrastructure needed to compete in artificial intelligence. The U.S. power grid is already stretched thin and AI development requires massive new amounts of electricity and computing capacity. Slowing down American energy and AI projects directly benefits China, which is racing the U.S. for technological dominance.
Let’s acknowledge that some local concerns are legitimate. Residents, elected officials and community members should all have a voice in the process. But the debate should be based on accurate information instead of coordinated disinformation campaigns and PR wars waged by communists across the globe. The potential economic windfall, including thousands of construction jobs, permanent tech positions, and large tax revenues for our communities are simply too large to ignore by turning our back on data centers. So is our nation’s global standing.
Sincerely,
Shane