Stratos Data Center

Summary

Stratos is a proposed energy, data-center, and advanced-manufacturing development in the Military Installation Development Authority's Stratos Project Area in unincorporated Box Elder County. MIDA's adopted project-area plan covers approximately 40,000 acres of private land and 1,200 acres of military and state-owned land and contemplates hyperscale data centers alongside power generation and other development. Stratos Project Area Plan

The scale is the reason to pay attention. MIDA states Phase One is a committed 3 GW and full buildout approximately 9 GW (MIDA project-area page) — figures that are large against any measure of Utah's existing grid. The 3 GW number is the only one that appears in an instrument: the posted master-development-agreement draft obliges the developer to build an energy facility in Hansel Valley "capable of producing at least three (3) Gigawatts of electricity" within five years of the effective date (master development agreement draft). No 9 GW figure appears in any located instrument; it is MIDA's own projection.

The project remains prospective. The public records establish a planning and land-use framework, not completed facilities, operating capacity, or environmental permits — and the agreement carrying the 3 GW obligation is an unsigned draft. Master development agreement draft

Impact

If built, Stratos would concentrate unusually large electricity, computing, industrial, and infrastructure demands in rural Box Elder County. Its potential breadth comes from the proposed scale and from its intended defense and advanced-computing uses. Its bounds are equally important: MIDA's economic, employment, water, and full-buildout descriptions are projections, while Utah DEQ said on May 4, 2026 that no air-quality Notice of Intent had yet been submitted.

Bet: Co-locating generation and hyperscale computing can create durable defense-aligned infrastructure, provided land-use, air, and water constraints are resolved publicly before construction.

Utah Context

The project area is in Hansel Valley in western Box Elder County and includes land associated with the Utah Test and Training Range. MIDA created the project area with Box Elder County consent. After that consent, the county published a 180-day moratorium document covering data centers and data-center power plants while it considered county land-use rules; the relationship between that county action and MIDA's statutory land-use authority remains a material governance question.

What It Took

The public record shows coordination among MIDA, Box Elder County, private landowners, the state, and a master developer. MIDA adopted a project-area plan effective May 4, 2026. It also published an April 24, 2026 master-development-agreement draft with O'Leary Digital Utah Development Company; the posted copy contains blank execution and acknowledgment fields and therefore is not evidence of a signed agreement.

One provision in that draft is worth stating plainly, because it shapes who decides what gets built: MIDA's own development standards do not regulate energy production installations or nuclear facilities. The draft records that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds exclusive licensing authority over commercial nuclear plants in Utah and that Utah DEQ must issue an approval order before emitting equipment such as a natural gas facility is built — and that, those approvals in hand, the developer may construct generation in the project area without further MIDA permitting (master development agreement draft). Generation siting for a multi-gigawatt campus therefore runs through federal and state regulators, not the local land-use authority.

Open Questions

• Which facilities, generation technologies, and capacities receive final land-use and environmental approval? The draft agreement's carve-out for nuclear facilities is permissive language, not evidence that a reactor is planned; no located record names a generation technology.
• How does the project's stated scale compare with actual Utah system load and PacifiCorp's resource plans? No source located for this page states Utah's total generation or peak demand.
• How will the project obtain and manage water, and what do permit applications show about withdrawals and discharges?
• Which obligations survive in executed agreements, rather than public plans or unsigned drafts?
• How do MIDA and county authorities interact after the county's temporary land-use action?

Evidence

• Source: Stratos Project Area Plan · https://www.midaut.org/s/Stratos-Project-Area-Plan-May-2026-khcb.pdf
• MIDA: Stratos Project Area page · https://www.midaut.org/stratos
• Source: Box Elder County Stratos project page · https://www.boxeldercountyut.gov/641/Stratos-Project
• Source: Utah DEQ permitting letter · https://www.boxeldercountyut.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2144/DEQ-Letter-Box-Elder-County-Letter
• Source: Box Elder County Ordinance 654 · https://www.boxeldercountyut.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2318/Ordinance-654---Data-Center-Moratorium
• Source: Stratos master development agreement draft · https://www.midaut.org/s/MDA-Stratos-Development-Agreement-23April2026.pdf