Kevin O' Leary Backs Large-Scale Data Centre Projects in US, Canada to Provide Gigawatts of AI-Ready Power

Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary is advancing a major data centre project in the US and Canada through his firm, O'Leary Digital, which has formed a joint venture (JV) with West GenCo to develop a compute campus called Wonder Valley in Utah.

O'Leary Digital recently stated that the project will deliver up to 7.5 gigawatts (GW) of power capacity, making it among the leading data infrastructure developments to support AI and cloud computing. The JV will advance the project through the regulatory and permitting process, with West GenCo managing state-level coordination.

O'Leary Digital is also working on a Wonder Valley campus in Alberta, Canada, where permitting is currently underway. The twin Wonder Valley data centre campuses in Utah and Alberta are expected to deliver a combined initial power of 15 GW. In Alberta, the company is engaging with Indigenous communities whose traditional lands fall within the Greenview Industrial Gateway, where the proposed Wonder Valley project is located.

'The Greenview Industrial Gateway sits within lands that have long been part of Indigenous communities' traditional territories. Engagement, consultation, and shared opportunity are foundational to how we approach development in Alberta.' O'Leary stated. 'In Utah particularly, the energy resources and location create a compelling long-term opportunity.'

How O'Leary Digital Plans to Secure Gigawatts of Energy

While in Alberta, the O'Leary digital is likely planning a natural gas-fired power plant with a capacity of up to 8.5 GW to power its data centre operations, but the company did not disclose details on how it plans to secure 7.5 GW of electricity for the Utah data centre.

In the press release, the company highlighted 'access to major interstate natural gas infrastructure' in Utah, but did not share the details of its energy generation strategy. However, the Utah campus will focus on flexibility, accommodating single-tenant campuses or segmented multi-tenant configurations. Overall, O'Leary Digital is developing a whopping 26,000 acres of land across the US and Canada with the necessary infrastructure to ramp up compute capacity.

In an earlier interview, O'Leary said he does not plan to build the data centres on his own. 'My job is not necessarily to build a data centre. It's to prepare shovel-ready permits for all of the above-mentioned,' he had stated, adding that 50% of the data centres announced over the past three years 'will never get built.'

O'Leary's land parcels are being prepared with full utilities, making them suitable for bitcoin mining in the short term and potentially for government data centres in the long term. O'Leary stressed that power agreements in some locations are more valuable than bitcoin itself — particularly those offering electricity at prices below six cents per kilowatt-hour — making infrastructure more critical than the crypto tokens in the long run.

The investor had already invested in Norway's BitZero, a bitcoin mining company. The entrepreneur also disclosed during the interview that he has over 19% of his entire portfolio invested in crypto-linked assets. Although he has long been a supporter of digital assets, he admits to becoming more cautious amid the market's wild price swings.