Ypsilanti Hydro Park Los Alamos AI government Supercomputer

In December 2024, Michigan’s House and Senate Appropriations Committees voted to approve $100M in taxpayer funding for a new Los Alamos National Laboratory AI data center to be built, in partnership with the University of Michigan, in quaint Ypsilanti. This was done, according to Ypsilanti’s Township supervisor, without the knowledge of either local residents or elected officials. 

Los Alamos National Laboratory is the US Department of Energy government research facility which was responsible for the development of the atomic bomb, among many other warfare related technologies. The Hydro Park lab is slated, according to Los Alamos, “to support drone warfare and surveillance activities”.

Ypsilanti Township officials, who were initially in favor of what they thought was slated to be a small, 26 acre research facility, have since expressed strong negative sentiment towards the 225 acre government supercomputer greenfield development, and towards University of Michigan’s conduct. Local officials claim that the public ivy league university misled them about the size and scope of the project, and their representatives acted in deliberate bad faith. The site borders the Huron River and currently provides critical savannah habitat to a wide range of wildlife.

In a June letter, Supervisor Brenda Stumbo stated that the developers “are not to be trusted and do not do what is best for the community, the people, or the environment. They do what is best for them, and their money grabbing purchase of land should scare the hell out of all elected officials across the state.” To make matters worse: Article VIII Section 5 of Michigan’s constitution exempts schools such as University of Michigan from local zoning regulation. This means that the Hydro Park Los Alamos project isn’t subject to the township and county’s zoning regulations.

In August, township officials adopted a resolution which urged the developer to relocate the project into what they considered to be a more industrial district. In October, Ypsilanti City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing the AI supercomputer.

Local residents have been actively fighting against the data center, at local meetings and at street corners. Locals are concerned not only about the environmental impact of the data center itself, but also about the economic and moral implications of the work being done within the facility.

“Even if we’re living in the imaginary land that the University of Michigan has created,” local grassroots leader Samantha Stewart told Michigan Daily, “where there’s somehow no backup generators in the data center and it’s all daisies, I don’t want to build better weapons to bomb children in other countries.”