A deep dive into the rise of proposed Metro Detroit data centers

(FOX 2) - Planned and proposed data centers have become the talk of Metro Detroit in Saline Township, Southfield and Howell. This has led FOX 2 to wonder what's behind the sudden rise in these facilities and why Michigan is becoming a hot spot for them.

Big picture view:

The data center planned for Saline Township remains a major topic of discussion. They are one of at least ten communities in the state being considered for data centers, whether they are just proposals or essentially a done deal.

In Saline Township, DTE Energy announced yesterday that it expects the power contracts to be approved later this month for the $7 billion Oracle and OpenAI data center.

But why is this happening now, and why in Michigan?

Dig deeper:

FOX 2 spoke with AI expert Joe Tavares, who explained that much of the demand is driven by the auto industry.

"Essentially, as we save things on our iCloud, watch Netflix, use AI to answer our emails—all that requires throughput, and locally is better than having to transport all of your data to Silicon Valley or wherever it may be. So, we build them locally," said Tavares. "My guess is a lot of this is being driven by the Big Three. Those automotive companies are building world models and starting to test self-driving, and that requires a lot of compute."

Evelyn Harris from Saline expressed her concerns. 

"My personal feeling about them is they’re just taking away more natural beauty. The farmland, I think they’re ugly," she said. "I’m a designer, so I appreciate beauty, and they’re just flat-out ugly."

What's next:

Saline Township residents have urged their local officials to do more to stop the planned data center construction, but township officials say it's out of their hands. They even went to court over the issue but can't do much to stop it.