How Utah locals fought Kevin O'Leary's AI data center | Decoder

Today I’m talking with Josh Dzieza, a longtime features writer here at The Verge, about a massive data center in Utah that does not exist, might never exist, and yet has already completely reshaped the politics of the entire state. Josh just published a major feature this week on the struggling Stratos data center project in Utah backed by ‘Shark Tank’ star Kevin O’Leary. So I invited Josh on the show to discuss what’s happening inside the AI industry’s infrastructure boom, inside the bipartisan backlash to data centers, and how the tech industry is running into the one obstacle it can’t seem to spend its way out of: local democracy. #ai #datacenters #tech

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📷: Stephen Voss, Getty Images

0:00 - Cold Open
0:52 - Show Intro
1:57 - The Wonder Valley Story
5:28 - How O'Leary Got Approvals
8:12 - The Community Finds Out
13:05 - Who Are the Protesters?
15:39 - How the Opposition Succeeded
18:26 - Kevin O'Leary's Downfall
21:19 - The Data Center Race for Speed
26:14 - Does AI Economics Matter?
28:43 - What If the AI Bubble Pops?
31:12 - Lessons for the Rest of the Country
33:12 - Trump & Data Centers
37:05 - NIMBYism vs. Real Concerns
38:13 - What Happens Next?
40:04 - Outro

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