SALINE, Michigan — Residents wielding signs and megaphones quickly filled a main thoroughfare here Monday evening to protest what could be Michigan’s biggest hyperscale data center — more evidence of the nascent backlash that’s magnifying policy divides in this deeply purple state.
More than 100 people waved handmade posters, chanted “No Secret Deals,” and handed out cookies and hand warmers in a show of solidarity against the OpenAI-Oracle project dubbed “The Barn” that’s landed in Saline’s backyard with the support of a rare alliance: Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Trump White House.
Kathryn Haushalter, a Marine Corps veteran who lives in the township, told the crowd above the sound of cheers and honking cars that she moved to the area more than a decade ago to raise her children in the country and fix up an old farmhouse with her husband. Now, her property sits next to what tech giants say will be a 250-acre campus that will power artificial intelligence and cloud computing, part of the $500 billion Stargate venture that President Donald Trump and tech executives like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman unveiled earlier with much fanfare.
“For a data center to just come in and take my water and take my clean air, to take my dark skies with my beautiful stars, to take that from my children,” Haushalter said, her voice cracking. “There is no way I’m going to take this laying down, and I will fight with all of you.”
Social media campaigns, canvassing, packed city council meetings and protests from rural towns to the streets of Detroit are growing louder as developers fan out across the Mitten State. Projects near Ypsilanti, Lowell, Howell, and Benton Harbor are fueling concerns about electricity prices and rates, noise and light pollution, demand for power and water, and the mere presence of massive, humming operations.
The fight has landed in Saline, a community of less than 3,000 people just outside of Ann Arbor. There, tech giants OpenAI — the creator of ChatGPT — and Oracle, alongside Texas-based developer Related Digital, plan to build a massive AI and computing data center. The companies want to begin building the $7 billion facility next year, and DTE is slated to provide 1.4 gigawatts of power.
The political implications are evolving quickly as lawmakers, residents and regulators figure out how — and if — such massive facilities fit into the state’s energy landscape and economic future.
What’s also in flux is just how big the groundswell of opposition will become. “Is there a larger grassroots movement and concern, or does this just become a kind of rallying force for vocal but relatively small numbers of folks?” asked Barry Rabe, a professor emeritus of public policy at the University of Michigan.
Somewhat buffered is Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, said Rabe. Whitmer is a popular — and term-limited — politician, often discussed as a potential 2028 presidential candidate. She touted the Saline project as “the largest economic project in Michigan history,” and is credited with putting Michigan on the AI map by signing bipartisan legislation exempting data centers from the state’s 6 percent sales and use tax.
Whitmer reiterated that support in comments to the Michigan Public Service Commission, or MPSC, on Wednesday, saying the project will meet the state’s highest environmental standards and create thousands of union jobs without raising electricity rates. She also warned that other states are moving fast to compete with Michigan and produce similar projects with less oversight.
“The reality is that data centers are going to be a big part of America’s future,” Whitmer said. “The question isn’t whether they will be built, but rather: Can Michigan benefit from these jobs and build data centers in a smarter way while upholding our strong environmental laws to protect our precious natural resources? We have an opportunity to do both. We can set an example for the rest of the nation on how to build these facilities the right way and grow our economy at the same time.”
But that position is being met with deep skepticism and questions about what the sprawling, thirsty, energy-hungry AI nodes mean for Michigan and specifically, electricity prices and affordability. Those are questions that Rabe said candidates could face in next year’s gubernatorial race.
Waving signs that read “No Secret Deals” and “Whitmer Put It In Your Backyard,” protesters on Monday evening in Saline criticized DTE, one of the state’s largest utilities, for asking the MPSC to fast-track approval of its power contracts for the data center and forego the usual public hearings. The commission could decide as early as Friday.
Tim Bruneau, a Saline Township resident, blasted DTE before the crowd gathered Monday, accusing the utility of rushing to lock in its contracts while shutting out the public, even though the state has suffered some of the longest power outages in the nation. While residents are banding together — and even successfully halting projects in places like Kalkaska County — Bruneau said he and his neighbors are being forced to take on massive corporations with little backing from local politicians or the governor’s mansion.
“We’re up against the governor,” said Bruneau. “No one is calling us back.”
‘At a crossroads’
Bruneau recalled rallying his neighbors five months ago after learning Related Digital, the firm building the data center in Saline, planned to apply for conditional rezoning. One noticeable member of the developer’s team was Ryan Friedrichs, vice president of Related Cos., an affiliate of Related Digital, who is married to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who’s running for governor.
At a packed meeting in September, officials rejected Related Digital’s rezoning request. But weeks later, the township pivoted after the developer and landowners sued, instead opting to ink a consent agreement that allowed the project to advance. Fred Lucas, the township’s attorney, later told local news outlets that the township wanted to avoid a court battle.
The move left Bruneau baffled and disappointed. “There was some backdoor trickery going on,” he said. “It went by so fast, we could barely even react to what happened.”
Natalie Ravitz, a spokesperson for Related Digital, said the project has local support. She also defended the settlement, noting that it restricts water usage; includes setbacks, site plans and decommissioning; shrinks the project’s footprint from 575 acres to 250 acres; and ensures the remaining land will be preserved as open space, farmland, wetlands and woodlands. Ravitz said it also includes $14 million in local investments and that the project will use a closed-loop cooling system.
Yet Josh Lebaron, whose home is near the project site, remains unmoved. “We’re talking about some of the richest people in the world here,” said Lebaron. “If they don’t agree with the consent agreement, they’re just going to sue or make a shell corporation. We’ve seen this story many times before with corporate America.”
One of the most contentious points is DTE’s request for the state to fast-track approval of power contracts with Green Chile Ventures, a subsidiary of Oracle Corp.
At an online meeting on Wednesday evening, Dan Scripps, chair of the MPSC, said he’d received more than 5,000 comments in response to DTE’s request and that while some people are excited about the prospect of an AI build-out, he’s aware of the “very real frustration concern and even anger” sweeping the state as almost a dozen projects sprout up.
“Michigan is at a crossroads,” said Scripps.
DTE has warned that plans for the data center could crumble if the commission doesn’t act by Friday.
“The contracts before the [MPSC] include a provision allowing the customer to terminate if agreements are not approved by December 5, 2025,” DTE spokesperson Ryan Lowry said in an email.
Lowry emphasized that power for the data center will come from the utility’s existing generation and energy storage being funded by the data center, and that DTE has an obligation to serve any customer in its service territory. Lowry also said the total projected price tag is $500 million — the cost of a new substation and transmission upgrades — that Oracle will cover through a supply agreement.
The contracts before MPSC, he added, will not increase rates for existing customers. Given that, Lowry said the state’s regulatory process allows a company to file for ex parte — or uncontested — approval.
Local business groups and unions on Wednesday expressed support for DTE’s request and the Saline data center, citing need for more jobs and community benefits. “A project like this data center is huge for workers. It’s going to create thousands of union construction jobs, around 450 permanent on site jobs and thousands more jobs across the region, while delivering millions in local revenue,” said Randall Whitaker, president of the Washtenaw County Skilled Building Trades Council. “It represents one of the largest economic investments in Michigan’s history and delivers significant benefits to Saline Township and the region.”
And yet DTE has drawn the ire of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), who intervened in the case and demanded a public hearing. “We’re getting these heavily redacted documents and we don’t even know what this means,” Nessel told CBS News Detroit on Tuesday. “It makes me deeply suspicious and skeptical that the [MPSC] is more concerned about kowtowing to these enormous artificial intelligence companies and the utility involved, DTE, than they are in protecting the people in our state.”
Bryan Smigielski, the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Michigan campaign organizer, said DTE still has yet to show its existing resources plus the data center’s demand for 1.4 GW of storage can reliably serve the region over the next 19 years. It’s also possible that the utility could miss critical climate goals, he said. Under state law, DTE must reach 50 percent renewables by 2030, and eventually 100 percent clean energy by 2040.
“The concern is that DTE’s future filings for future data centers could assert that meeting these large loads requires rolling temporary two-year exemptions from compliance with those clean energy targets, and potentially justify additional new gas plants in the process,” he said.
‘Sleeping giant’
The growing number of candidates jockeying to replace Whitmer will likely face questions about their stance on AI in coming months and how they plan to balance economic development with environmental and consumer protections.
“You can envision a question, do you support what the state has been doing these past months [on] data centers?” said Rabe. “That really opens up this race to a whole bunch of questions about the future of electricity production and reliability and pricing in the state of Michigan.”
“I think that it is kind of the sleeping giant that is going to become the central issue of the Michigan races in 2026 across the political spectrum,” said Seth Bernard, an organizer who led the effort to halt a data center near his home in Kalkaska County. Bernard, who leads the environmental nonprofit Title Track, said the debate around AI is part of a broader working-class fight against corporations forcing their will on local communities.
Gubernatorial contenders include Benson, Democratic Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, Republican Rep. John James of Michigan and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who announced late last year that he would run as an independent and break from the Democratic Party.
While Gilchrist and James did not immediately respond when asked about their positions, Duggan told students at the University of Michigan in October that Michigan needs to increase its construction of AI data centers. “AI needs huge data warehouses — [the] state of Michigan, way behind on data warehouses,” the mayor said, according to The Michigan Daily. “Who’s thinking through how to create these jobs of the future?”
Andrea Bitely, a spokesperson for Duggan, said the mayor has repeatedly proposed a “single statewide standard” for siting new projects that would require local participation, sustainable water management like closed-loop systems and “airtight protections on residents’ utility rate increases” to ensure costs for additional power infrastructure isn’t spread to Michigan residents. Bitely said that would also include reserves to protect residents from absorbing any costs, even if a data center closes years down the road.
Alyssa Bradley, a spokesperson for Benson’s campaign, said the secretary of state believes Michigan should welcome innovation and jobs, “but never at the expense of our communities, our environment, or public trust.” Benson has also said her husband will not be involved with “any future State of Michigan affiliated development projects” if she’s elected governor, Bradley added.
“Any project of this scale must go through a transparent, public process that ensures the full impacts are understood and that costs are not shifted onto the people,” said Bradley. “As governor, Jocelyn will set clear, enforceable standards for data centers that safeguard the environment, ensure responsible water use, and guarantee that costs don’t fall on consumers, while communities have a meaningful voice in the process.”
When asked what sets Benson apart from Whitmer, Bradley responded: “Jocelyn Benson believes Michiganders — not corporations — should drive decisions about Michigan’s future.”
