In Box Elder County, Utah, residents who tried to put a massive data center project to a public vote were told no — then sued. The county responded with a moratorium that carves out a special exemption for the exact project they're fighting. That's just story one.
🏘️ **COMMUNITY** — Utah's Box Elder County passed a 180-day data center moratorium on June 17 — but explicitly exempted Stratos, a 9 GW data center campus backed by Kevin O'Leary that would consume more electricity than the entire state of Utah. After the county rejected three referendum applications to put Stratos to a public vote, residents' group BEAR filed suit in district court on June 3, arguing the county has never been "disinterested and unbiased." Nearly 700 formal protests were filed against Stratos's water rights application.
⚖️ **LEGAL** — The Trump Justice Department filed a motion on June 16 to dismiss the NAACP's Clean Air Act lawsuit against Elon Musk's xAI, arguing that cutting power to xAI's Colossus 2 data center in Memphis would threaten "national, economic, and energy security." The NAACP, represented by Earthjustice and the Southern Environmental Law Center, says xAI is operating 59 unpermitted methane gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi — capable of emitting over 5,300 tons of nitrogen oxides annually into communities already failing federal air quality standards.
⚡ **POWER** — Virginia is the world's data center capital — and its grid operator, Dominion Energy, serves neighboring West Virginia too. An NPR investigation found that West Virginia residents, who host no hyperscale data centers and receive none of the tax revenue or jobs, are absorbing the same Dominion rate hikes as Virginia customers. PJM's regional capacity market auction price surged 833% for 2025–2026, a cost baked directly into residential electricity bills across 13 states.
🏗️ **NEW BUILD** — Meta's Hyperion campus in Richland Parish, Louisiana now carries a projected cost exceeding $200 billion — up from the initial $10 billion announced in December 2024. The campus spans 4,000+ acres, targets 5 GW of compute power, and won't open until 2030. Entergy Louisiana has committed to building 10 gas-fired power plants to supply it — seven added in a single March 2026 agreement, tripling the original plan. As of June 2026, 3,700 construction workers are on site.
💰 **INVESTMENT** — Applied Digital announced on June 8 a 15-year take-or-pay lease at Delta Forge 2 covering 210 MW of critical IT load — generating $5.2 billion in base-term revenue, or $12.7 billion if all 30-year renewal options are exercised. The unnamed U.S. investment-grade hyperscaler has now signed three separate long-term leases with Applied Digital. The deal pushes Applied Digital's total AI Factory portfolio to $36 billion across five campuses.
