AI data centers are coming to central Utah

The data center rush reshaping Millard County has already crossed county lines into Sanpete County.
Sanpete County commissioners have been fielding data center proposals since late 2025, with one developer projecting $3.7 million in annual sales tax revenue for a facility along the U.S. 89 corridor.

The Chester Pond is being updated to help provide water for what officials see as a shifting industrial base.
For a county historically reliant on agriculture and coal, with deep ties to the Sufco mine just over the Sanpete-Sevier County line, the proposals arrive at a pivotal moment.

Sanpete, like Millard, is searching for a post-coal economic identity. What’s happening 50 miles west offers both a blueprint and a cautionary tale.

In Millard County, two companies are racing to build the largest data center campuses in the world. If completed as planned, the facilities will occupy more than 8 square miles and consume enough electricity to power millions of homes—all to fuel the nation’s appetite for artificial intelligence.

“I don’t think there’s another county in the United States that has the potential to produce power from six different resources,” Millard County Commissioner Bill Wright said at a recent public meeting. “Right here in our county we have geothermal, solar, a little bit of wind, coal, gas, and nuclear on the horizon.”

The first data center project in Millard, scheduled for development by Salt Lake City-based Creekstone Energy, is called the “Delta Gigasite.”
At 20 million square feet across approximately 1,200 acres, it would surpass China’s Hohhot facility to become the world’s largest data center campus. Creekstone plans to power the site with a mix of solar, natural gas and potentially coal-fired electricity from the nearby Intermountain Power Project (IPP).

The second project is being developed by Joule Capital Partners, a national company specializing in infrastructure finance, which broke ground in November on a 4,000-acre campus northwest of Fillmore in Millard County.
The land belongs to Triple C Farms, owned in part by Joule partner Mark McDougal, whose family has farmed the property for two decades.
“Our hope is that we can integrate with the local population. We want to be neighbors,” McDougal told Millard County commissioners at the project approval hearing.

Both projects received unanimous approval from the Millard County Commission. Combined, they represent the largest private investment in Utah history.

At a vendor luncheon in early January, Creekstone CEO Buford Ray Conley outlined his vision. The company expects roughly 1,000 construction workers on site for five years, with about 100 megawatts of data center capacity coming online each month after the initial buildings open in late 2026.

Each 100-megawatt data center building generates approximately $50 million in tax revenue for the county, according to Creekstone’s estimates. The first phase alone, just two buildings, would bring in roughly $150 million, or about 15 times Millard County’s current budget.
“The data centers are probably the best way for us to get development, rather than a business that brings 500 people for whom we will have to build houses, schools and everything else,” Commissioner Wright said.

Unlike traditional industry, data centers require minimal permanent staffing— roughly 12 to 25 employees per building once operational.
Commissioner Vicki Lyman echoed that sentiment, noting that unlike developments that strain local infrastructure, data centers “will provide their own power, water, infrastructure and even security.”

Data centers have earned a reputation as water-hungry operations, and in a desert state where the Great Salt Lake continues to shrink, that reputation raises concerns.

A January Salt Lake Tribune investigation found that some Utah data centers consume vast quantities. The U.S. National Security Agency facility in Bluffdale used more than 126 million gallons in a single year.

But both Millard County projects claim to be different. Rather than using evaporative cooling, which lets water escape into the atmosphere, they plan closed-loop systems that recirculate a propylene glycol mixture.

“If you got an air conditioner in your house, do you hook your water hose up to your air conditioner?” Conley asked residents at a public meeting. “These are like big air conditioners. They don’t need water. You just use more electricity.”

Joule’s project goes further, claiming it will actually use 75 percent less water than farming the same acreage. The company holds historical water rights to a groundwater aquifer that has been in the McDougal family for 50 years.

Ye there continues to be skepticism. State Rep. Jill Koford, R-Ogden, has introduced a bill requiring data centers to publicly report their water use. “We really don’t have any statewide guardrails for reporting and transparency,” Koford told the Tribune.

Not everyone in Millard County welcomes the impact the data centers are expected to have, not just on water but on the landscape. At a contentious planning commission meeting in January, residents packed the room to debate a proposed solar power expansion on state trust lands.

“I’m a rancher. I’m a home builder. I need growth as much as anybody,” one resident said. “But it scares me to death when we start talking rezoning because once you rezone something, you cannot ever get it back.”

Others worried about the companies’ long-term commitments. One speaker cited statistics suggesting that 94 percent of solar projects in Utah’s history have changed ownership, raising questions about who the county will ultimately be dealing with.

But supporters pushed back. “I got killed by property taxes this year,” said one Delta business owner. “Doing this would almost offset my property taxes. Why would we not all benefit from this?”

Sue Mooney, who attended a Creekstone open house expecting to oppose the project, said she left convinced. “Every question that I asked or the concern that I had was answered directly,” she said. “This is a growing community. I want my kids to be here.”

Creekstone officials describe Delta as the “Golden Spike of the Internet,” a reference to the more than 20 long-haul fiber optic routes that intersect in the area. That connectivity extends along the U.S. 89 corridor through Sanpete, making the county attractive to an industry desperate for space to expand.

Gov. Spencer Cox has made Utah’s AI future a priority through his “Operation Gigawatt” initiative, which aims to double the state’s power production over the next decade. Data centers are central to that vision. And rural counties with available land, water rights, and willing landowners are central to data center development.

The alfalfa fields and family farms that define central Utah’s agricultural valleys are exactly what drew Joule Capital Partners to Triple C Farms. Similar conversations are now happening in Sanpete.

“This is the base layer of AI—the foundational infrastructure that will determine who wins the AI race,” Conley said at the vendor luncheon. “This isn’t just business—it’s national security.”

For Sanpete County, the questions Millard residents are wrestling with (water usage, rezoning, long-term ownership, balancing tax revenue against agricultural heritage) are no longer hypothetical. They’re on the agenda.