The University of Michigan, in partnership with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is planning to build a $1.25 billion data center in Ypsilanti, which has received pushback from local residents over the potential environmental impact it would have on the surrounding area. Although construction was initially scheduled to begin in 2026, the University has delayed the beginning of construction to 2027.
Since the facility is intended for research purposes and not as infrastructure for website data or cloud storage, the University has requested that the facility under construction be referred to as a high-performance computing center instead of a data center. The University has stated the building will not function like a commercial data center store that hosts private-sector platforms like social media, the cloud or e-commerce, but rather a computing facility built for research focused on AI, energy and national security.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Samantha Stewart, Ypsilanti resident and Stop The Data Center organizer, said she and other activists oppose the center due to its water and electricity consumption, which typically doubles local power costs for residents living around a data center…