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Heated town hall on Michigan data center project in Ypsilanti
This town hall was held at the Marriott in Ypsilanti Township. That issue is what the University of Michigan calls a High-Performance Research Computing Center slated for development. Locals here call it just another data center.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (FOX 2) - There was a heated confrontation in Ypsilanti within the fight against a data center with connections to national defense work and a partnership with the University of Michigan.
Big picture view:
Sensing the potential temperature for this town hall, the Washtenaw County Sheriff had several deputies on hand. There appeared to be private security in place too.
This town hall was held at the Marriott in Ypsilanti Township. That issue residents are rallying against is what the University of Michigan calls a High-Performance Research Computing Center slated for development. Locals here call it just another data center.
It would be in partnership with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which was founded during the Manhattan Project-era and is led by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The $1.25 billion project would provide AI and data crunching for research in energy, national security, medicine, cybersecurity, climate and infectious diseases.
It will be built on a plot of land owned by U of M on Textile Road. Project developers say there will be no nuclear materials or manufacturing on the site but still the concerns from residents go well beyond the usual data center worries of environmental impact and noise.
Some even fear that having a national defense project here puts a target on the community’s back.
Dig deeper:
The University and the lab say the center will be used for computer research into nuclear matters, not the production of nuclear weapons.
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The Source: FOX 2 attended the meeting in Ypsilanti for information in this report.