![\"people](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/data-center-utah.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t<\/p>\n
Protesters react as the Box Elder County Commission announces approval of the Stratos data center.Natalie Behring\/Getty<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n Kevin O\u2019Leary is best known as \u201cMr. Wonderful\u201d on Shark Tank, or maybe as the bad guy from Marty Supreme. On Shark Tank, he invests in\u2014or crushes the spirits of\u2014small business owners. He describes himself as an \u201cinvestor, chef, sommelier, collector, photographer, and musician.\u201d But he might soon be able to add \u201cAI infrastructure kingpin\u201d to that list of titles, as he pushes forward with a massive data center project in northern Utah.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other celebrities have dabbled in AI. Ashton Kutcher\u2019s Sound Ventures put $30 million into OpenAI, an investment that\u2019s now worth over a billion dollars. Ben Affleck\u2019s AI post-production company InterPositive was recently acquired by Netflix for about $600 million.<\/p>\n Others have simply cut advertisements for AI companies, like Ryan Reynolds\u2019 OpenAI\/Mint Mobile TV spot two years ago<\/a>. But O\u2019Leary stands out for his evident commitment to the game of bringing star appeal to the decidedly unsexy subject of hyperscale computing infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s the primary investor backing a giant data center project<\/a> called Stratos<\/a> in Utah. Stratos, which would be about two-and-a-half times the size of Manhattan, would be 100-percent powered by gas generators, one of the developers told the Salt Lake Tribune<\/a>. This single project could increase Utah\u2019s net greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50 percent, one University of Utah professor<\/a> estimated. It\u2019s backed by Utah\u2019s Military Installation Development Authority, which has granted the project significant tax breaks.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n On Shark Tank, O\u2019Leary once said, \u201cThe market has spoken, and it\u2019s basically telling you people hate this product.\u201d He said this regarding a line of toddler pants with built-in squeakers in the knees<\/a>. While the market, such as it is, may be more excited about data centers than noisy pants, there are certainly plenty of locals in Utah who seem to hate O\u2019Leary\u2019s new product.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m the only developer of data centers on earth that graduated from environmental studies. I’m pretty aware of what these concerns are. They are around air, water use, heat, noise pollution. So sustainability is at the heart of what we do in terms of all these proposals. We\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/Qvob70uEmh<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) May 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Hundreds of people came out to protest O\u2019Leary\u2019s plan Monday evening at a meeting of the commissioners of Box Elder County, where the data center will be located. They were not allowed to speak, instead forced to hold signs in the back of the room as the county commissioners approved a permit<\/a> for the billion-dollar data center. Roughly 3,700 additional people have filed protests asking the Utah Division of Water Rights to reject the data center\u2019s permit. O\u2019Leary claimed after the meeting that the protesters were \u201cprofessionals\u201d bused in from out of state.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the only developer of data centers on earth that graduated from environmental studies,\u201d O\u2019Leary said in a video posted to X<\/a>. \u201cWe think over 90% of the protesters are actually not people who live in Utah\u2026I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to work out for them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t O\u2019Leary\u2019s only AI-oriented investment. He\u2019s also backing Bitzero, a company that produces \u201cdata centers for a greener, more sustainable world.\u201d (His non-AI investments include a cat DNA testing company and a company that mails you potatoes as a gag gift.) Another data center campus O\u2019Leary is backing, in Canada, has been stalled for the past year<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t