Saline Project Stargate hyperscale AI Data Center

Governor Whitmer herself has given her blessing to this $7B hyperscale AI data center, giving it the ominous title “Project Stargate”. This facility, slated for agricultural Saline, is being developed by a partnership of OpenAI, Oracle, and Related Digital. Stephen Ross is the billionaire developer who owns Related Digital, and who has been a heavy financial patron to his alma mater, University of Michigan.

The 250 acre greenfield site that’s been targeted is in the middle of a quiet residential-agricultural community just south of Ann Arbor; it’s currently occupied by 31 individual owners, whose land use is residential and agricultural. In spite of shoddy advice from consulting firm Carlisle Wortman, which advised that the data center’s minimal benefits would outweigh its environmental impacts, the township board voted 4-1 to deny rezoning the site to industrial, at the developers’ request. 

Developers OpenAI, Oracle, and Related Digital responded by suing the township. The board has caved to what residents have described as “bullying,” and have settled on an agreement to the project, with minor concessions.

Since then, DTE has struck an agreement with the developers to increase total demand by 25%, adding 1.4 gigawatts–the equivalent of an entire nuclear power plant. DTE plans to spend $6B over the next five years on infrastructure to serve the data center, $2B of which will allegedly be paid for by the data center developer. DTE claims rates for residents will not increase.

Michigan Public Service Commission, our state’s utility regulatory agency, must approve this deal with DTE–an approval process which, by law, requires a public hearing. DTE has recently requested MPSC waive public hearings for their applications for the Project Stargate AI expansions.