Why it matters: There's been a lot of talk about whether the anti-data center sentiment sweeping the US is being driven by China. Investor Kevin O'Leary, widely known as "Mr. Wonderful" on the ABC show Shark Tank, appears to believe it's true. He called opponents of his Utah data center proxies for the Chinese government during a Fox News appearance, a claim the network has now apologized for airing.
The Stratos project is a new hyperscale AI data center set to be built across roughly 41,200 acres in an unincorporated area of western Box Elder County, Utah. The lead developer is O'Leary Digital, owned by the billionaire.
As with all these facilities, plenty of groups and individuals are pushing back against its development, including Party for Socialism and Liberation, People's Dispatch, Alliance for a Better Utah, and Elevate Strategies.
In May, O'Leary appeared on Fox News to discuss the controversy. "Who would want us to stop building our electrical grid? Who would want to stop us from having compute capacity to develop AI? Which adversary would want that?" he asked. "There's only one: It's China," he added, before naming some of the opponents.
Now, several Fox hosts, including Maria Bartiromo and Johnny Joey Jones, have apologized for O'Leary's claims, adding that there is no evidence that the groups and individuals he called out are funded by or working with the Chinese Communist Party.
– Acyn (@Acyn) June 28, 2026
O'Leary himself has also apologized for his words and admitted there is no evidence supporting his claims.
Despite all the reasons why more Americans would now rather live near a nuclear power plant than a data center – rising electricity prices, environmental impact, heavy water usage, consumption of valuable land, etc – there have even been calls from Republicans to investigate whether this opposition stems from China's hidden hand.
OpenAI, which obviously has absolutely no vested interest in seeing data centers welcomed by everyone, recently said China ran a covert influence campaign to turn Americans against the facilities – using facts that are actually true. The campaign had little effect: pointing out the obvious isn't going to sway anyone.
The Stratos project is estimated to consume nearly 9 GW of power – more than twice the state's current electricity demand of around 4 GW, though it promises to generate its own power.
Image credit: KUTV