By Shane Smith

Our state is under a sustained invasion by Big Tech to place their resource-devouring data centers on our land. “Invasion” is an accurate term to describe what is happening, as large corporations descend on Oklahoma to exploit our relatively cheap electricity, water, and gullible city councils who are cajoled into entering into murky agreements with faceless megacorps, and in the process selling out their community and surrounding population for…what, exactly?

The data center invasion is something that nobody asked for, much less the thousands of residents who feel they are being completely ignored by their elected leaders when they rubber stamp these water-and-electricity devouring atrocities. What benefit do they gain that will offset the inevitable rise in their monthly bills and blight the land near their homes? We can smell a scam coming a mile away, and we can’t help but feel powerless when we’re muscled out of the deal-making entirely. We understand that we will be the ones footing the bill for these facilities, and more than likely the last in line to reap any benefits.

Gov. Kevin Stitt is fully onboard with the data center incursion, touting “economic growth” as he always does when opening another door for large corporations to exploit our state’s low-cost resources. In his 2025 State of the State Address, Stitt stated that he wanted “Oklahoma to be the high-tech capital of the world.” I think we should take his word for it. That may sound great to him, but to the rest of us it rings ominous.

Each day, a typical hyperscale, AI data center will consume roughly as much electricity as 100,000 homes, and around 5 million gallons of water. The larger data centers are expected to use 20 times as much electricity. According to the study, “Powering Texas’ Digital Economy: Data Centers and the Future of the Grid,” data centers in Texas consumed 49 billion gallons of water in 2025, and are expected to use as much as 399 billion gallons each year by 2030. In 2024, US data centers accounted for 4% of all the energy usage in the entire nation, or 183 TWh (terawatt hours). By 2030, that number is expected to jump to 426 TWh. Is this dramatic rate of increase in energy consumption really sustainable, and what does it mean for residents?

Construction of large data centers have proceeded at a break-neck pace in our state, and few residents have had the time to even understand what is happening to their communities. The lack of knowledge has been an advantage to the metastasizing industry so far, because when Oklahomans do realize what’s happening, they almost universally oppose it. What’s in it for them? How does “data” improve their lives in the slightest? The sheer cost of electricity, water, and land that these data centers consume is staggering, and many wonder how our electric grid and water reservoirs could ever supply the needed resources without averting a total disaster.

According to www.datacentermap.com, 37 data centers currently operate in Oklahoma. Many of these are small facilities that our grid can handle. But the new data centers are “hyperscale,” dedicated to processing unheard-of amounts of information for AI purposes, and will use millions of gallons of water, and more electricity per day than most Oklahoma cities.

Four hyperscale data centers currently in the planning phase or already under construction are located in Claremore, Coweta, another on the outskirts of Owasso, and another just outside of Sand Springs. Dubbed “Project Mustang,” “Project Atlas,” “Project Clydesdale,” and “Project Spring,” the four complexes will be located within 20 miles of each other, and are projected to use vast amounts of water and electricity each day.

Project Mustang is a planned 300-acre data center, estimated to use 1.5 million gallons of water per day. Project Atlas, a $1 billion, 200-acre data center, will use an estimated 400 MW of electricity per day. Project Anthem will be located on 304 acres and is projected to use 2 million gallons of water per day. Project Clydesdale will span roughly 500 acres, and use an estimated 7 million gallons per day. The developer, Beale Infrastructure, has not publicly disclosed estimated electricity demand for the complex.

Google’s Project Spring is set to be a massive, 827-acre hyperscale data center located just outside of Sand Springs. Despite overwhelming public opposition, the Sand Springs city council approved rezoning for the facility in a 6-1 vote. Beau Wilson, to his credit, was the lone dissenting vote. The local grassroots group Sand Springs Alliance filed a lawsuit, alleging violations of annexation policies. Residents voiced their concerns about a doubling of their utility bills, concerns that fell on deaf ears.

One point of great contention is the fact that many city councils and counties sign non-disclosure agreements with data center developers long before the public learns anything at all, and before the backroom deals begin to take shape. Details of a deal for a planned data center in Stillwater was kept under wraps for months before the public was made aware that the new facility would be a Google-owned data center. Almost every planned data center has been wrapped in vague wording, almost up to the moment that the deal is inked.

The real questions that are never answered clearly is: is this sustainable? Do we have enough water and electricity long-term to allow these enormous facilities to operate in our state without devastating consequences for Oklahoma residents? What the residents who understand the issue want to know is simply this: what are our leaders getting us into?

The biggest AI companies in the world are bypassing our Oklahoma Legislature entirely, going straight to small city councils with their slick presentations about how their gargantuan facility will somehow benefit their community. The members of the council see dollar signs, and not much else, apparently. Is it really appropriate for city councils to hold such consequential decision-making power over these ventures when the outcome could very well lead to a doubling or tripling of utility bills – or worse – ecological disaster? And when those councils appear to completely disregard the voices of their residents, it is appropriate to ask whether they should be stripped of this power entirely.

Our legislature, thankfully, has seen the danger of unrestrained growth of these data centers, and have passed multiple bills to at least mitigate some of the worst harms. But wouldn’t the real solution be to ban them entirely? Why should Oklahomans foot the bill in the form of higher utility bills, blighted land, and pollution? Why, for that matter, is the United States home to the most data centers in the world? We’re told it’s to “beat China,” but they have only roughly 400 of them. The US, by contrast, is home to over 5,000. What is going on here? Pumping the brakes would be wise, as we take time to understand what these facilities will be used for, and whether, when push comes to shove, will we be forced to compete with them for resources.