A 9-gigawatt AI data center campus backed by investor Kevin O’Leary has been approved in Utah, according to an April 26, 2026 report from Tom’s Hardware. The project is described as generating and consuming more than twice the amount of power the entire state of Utah currently uses — placing it among the largest data center developments ever announced anywhere in the world.

Executive Summary

The headline fact is the scale: 9 gigawatts is not a data center in any conventional sense — it is a power project with computing attached. For perspective, 9GW is roughly the output of nine large nuclear reactors, and the report frames it as more than double Utah’s entire statewide electricity draw. Notably, the report says the campus will generate as well as consume that power, which signals a behind-the-meter model: building dedicated generation on site rather than asking the regional grid to supply it.

The second fact is the word “approved.” Some jurisdictional body has said yes to something — but at headline level, the report does not specify which approval this is: land-use zoning, an air-quality permit, a generation license, or a state economic-development agreement. In mega-project development, each of those is a different gate, and clearing the first one is a long way from moving dirt. What is substantiated here is an approval milestone for an extraordinarily ambitious plan; what is not yet substantiated is financing, customers, a construction timeline, or the generation technology behind the 9GW figure.

A Power Plant First, a Data Center Second

The most telling detail in the report is that the campus will “generate and consume” its power. AI campuses at gigawatt scale have collided with a hard constraint across the United States: utility interconnection queues — the waiting lines to connect large new loads to the grid — now stretch years in many regions. Developers who cannot wait are going behind the meter, building their own gas turbines, and in some proposals nuclear or geothermal capacity, dedicated to the site. A 9GW self-generation plan sidesteps the queue but inherits a different set of problems: gas turbine order books are backed up years, fuel supply must be contracted at enormous volume, and on-site generation still typically requires air-quality permits and some grid tie for backup and startup power.

For lay readers, the practical meaning is this: the binding constraint on AI infrastructure has shifted from chips and buildings to electricity. Projects are now sized and sited around where power can be created, not where fiber or customers happen to be. Utah — with land, gas access, and a development-friendly posture — fits that new map.

What “Approved” Does and Does Not Mean

Approval is a genuine milestone; it is also the cheapest one. The industry has spent the past two years in an announcement race, with proposed multi-gigawatt campuses in the U.S., Canada, and the Gulf states collectively promising far more capacity than the supply chain — turbines, transformers, switchgear, chips, and skilled labor — can deliver on the advertised timelines. Analysts increasingly distinguish between announced gigawatts and energized gigawatts, and the gap between the two is wide. Kevin O’Leary himself previously announced a separate multi-gigawatt AI data center park in Alberta, Canada, which illustrates the pattern: high-profile backers can secure land and early approvals quickly, while the capital-intensive middle of the project — measured in tens of billions of dollars for a campus this size — takes years and committed tenants to close.

None of that makes the Utah project unserious. It makes it unproven, which is the honest status of nearly every gigawatt-class announcement at the approval stage. The credible test will be what follows: named anchor tenants, equipment orders, and financing commitments, not renderings.

Winners, Losers, and the Utah Question

If the campus advances, the near-term winners are clear: turbine and electrical-equipment manufacturers with the scarcest order slots, construction and trades labor in Utah, and the state’s tax base. Hyperscalers and AI labs hungry for capacity gain another potential supply option in a market where powered land is the scarcest commodity. The open question is who bears the risks. Behind-the-meter gas generation at this scale raises air-quality and emissions questions; data centers in the arid West raise water and cooling questions; and residents near any 9GW generation complex will have views on all of it. A project sized at more than twice the state’s current consumption will, fairly or not, become a referendum on how Utah wants to participate in the AI buildout — and community sentiment has already slowed or stopped large data center proposals in other states. Developers who engage those concerns early, with specific commitments on emissions, water, and grid impact, have fared better than those who lead with the gigawatt number.

Background

The AI boom has turned electricity into the data center industry’s scarcest input. Training and running large AI models requires dense clusters of power-hungry chips, and since 2023 developers have raced to secure “powered land” — sites where gigawatt-scale electricity can be delivered or built. With utility interconnection queues stretching years, a new class of power-first campuses has emerged that builds its own generation on site, and announced capacity across North America and the Gulf now far outstrips what has actually been energized.

Kevin O’Leary, the investor and Shark Tank personality behind O’Leary Ventures, entered this race with a previously announced multi-gigawatt AI data center park in Alberta, Canada. The Utah campus extends that playbook to the U.S. at even larger scale: at 9GW, the approved plan would exceed the entire current power draw of the state that will host it — a first even by the standards of this buildout.

Source: New AI data center in Utah will generate and consume more than twice the amount of power the entire state uses — Kevin O’Leary’s 9 Gigawatt Utah data center campus approved — Tom’s Hardware report, April 26, 2026, on the approval of O’Leary’s 9GW self-generating AI campus in Utah.