Utah
DataCentersExposed tracks 36 AI data centers in Utah — 6 operating and 11 in the pipeline — across 6 counties, drawing 14.1 GW of reported power demand from 4 tracked corporate operators.
Sources: Methodology, Coverage scorecard
Reporting by Eric Keller · Updated May 29, 2026
Utah at a glance
The largest footprint in Utah belongs to Flexential Corp., behind 6 tracked facilities. Meta Platforms, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Data4 round out the most active operators in the state. Many of these sites are filed under shell or project names rather than the parent's — our operator column resolves them back to the real corporate parent wherever the chain is documented.
Geographically, the buildout clusters: Utah County leads Utah with 10 facilities and a composite risk score of 23/100. Salt Lake County and Uintah County follow. Our county risk score weights project exposure (40%), power demand (30%), water draw (15%), and land footprint (15%); the full breakdown is shown on each county page.
Utah is not done growing. 11 facilities are in the pipeline — proposed, permitted, or under construction — which is where residents still have a say at zoning hearings and in rate cases. Each pending project is a decision about land, water, electricity prices, and tax revenue that hasn't been finalized.
We also surface the accountability trail: 3 state bills mentioning data centers and 6 recent news items are tracked for Utah below, pulled from LegiScan and GDELT and refreshed automatically. Legislation is linked to the counties and operators it names; news is classified by community sentiment.
2035 Buildout Outlook
Under the model's moderate-growth scenario (5%/yr annual load growth), PNNL's IM3 model sites about 5 standardized 36 MW campuses in Utah by 2035 — roughly 180 MW of new electricity demand and ~174 M gal/yr of cooling water. Under the higher-growth scenario (15%/yr) that climbs to 31 campuses (1.1 GW). For scale, we currently track 36 real data centers in Utah (14.1 GW of reported power).
- Low growth4144 MW · ~139 M gal/yr cooling water
- Moderate growth5180 MW · ~174 M gal/yr cooling water
- High growth15540 MW · ~522 M gal/yr cooling water
- Higher growth311.1 GW · ~1.1 billion gal/yr cooling water
The model assigns ~100% of these campuses' cooling to evaporative water cooling in Utah (the rest to mechanical/air cooling), a split it derives from local water stress and wet-bulb temperature.
These are modeled candidate sites, not announced or permitted facilities. PNNL's IM3 model places identical 36 MW unit-campuses at feasible locations under each scenario — it shows where demand could concentrate, never a specific parcel. Figures use a market-gravity weight of 50. How the model works.
Top operators in Utah
County risk leaderboard
| County | Facilities | Pipeline | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utah County | 10 | 4 | 23 |
| Salt Lake County | 8 | 1 | 20 |
| Uintah County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Millard County | 3 | 3 | — |
| Box Elder County | 2 | 2 | — |
| Iron County | 1 | 1 | — |
Pipeline & proposals
- Proposed2.0 GWFibernet MercuryDelta Campus/Delta GigasiteFibernet MercuryDelta · Millard County
- Proposed400 MWTract Pole Canyon / Pony ExpressTract · Utah County County
- Proposed50 MWBluSky AIOperator unknown · Millard County
- Proposed20 MWSummit Ridge Data CenterData4 · Utah County
- ProposedJoule Capital Partners, LLC Data CenterOperator unknown · Millard County
- ProposedUtah County Data CenterOperator unknown · Utah County