Shark Tank Star Shrinks Data Center Footprint After Backlash

A proposed Utah data center that would have been almost three times the size of Manhattan will be drastically scaled back after pressure from lawmakers.

In the latest sign of the growing pushback against the AI buildout, venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame pledged to cut the 40,000-acre Stratos development in half. Most of the remaining area will be left as open space, O’Leary wrote in a letter to Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams.

With those changes, the plan would be in line with calls for a 75% reduction in the overall size of the project, ...