The land round Hassayampa Ranch, 50 miles west of Phoenix, is dotted with saguaro cacti and residential to coyotes, jackrabbits, and rattlesnakes. Its few hundred human residents have been largely drawn by the tranquility and clear skies for stargazing.
However a number of of the most important names in Silicon Valley are all of the sudden very involved in what occurs on this serene stretch of desert. The area as soon as dominated by ranches and farmland is turning into a brand new sort of tech hub—one which’s largely unpeopled, made up of row upon row of buzzing, energy-hungry GPU racks in gigantic AI knowledge facilities.
At a weekday morning listening to earlier this month, practically an hour and a half away in downtown Phoenix, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors accredited an modification that may permit for the commercial rezoning of a 2,000-acre property at Hassayampa Ranch. The developer, Anita Verma-Lallian, purchased this huge tract of desert in Could 2025 in a $51 million deal backed by heavyweight tech traders together with the billionaire enterprise capitalist, podcast cohost, and Trump mega-donor Chamath Palihapitiya. The plan? An enormous AI knowledge middle venture that may seemingly draw a serious cloud supplier or Huge Tech “hyperscaler” similar to Meta, Google, or OpenAI.
“We now have in all probability six to eight giant hyperscalers which might be involved in taking a look at it,” Verma-Lallian advised Fortune. In a crisp grey jacket and slim black slacks, with a chartreuse clutch in hand, Verma-Lallian emerged victorious from the supervisors’ auditorium into the midmorning desert gentle. She and her workforce—together with her lawyer, actual property agent, PR rep, private assistant, and sister—grinned in a gaggle picture to mark the second.
For this 43-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants raised in Scottsdale, the vote represented one more milestone in her household’s American success story. Her father, Kuldip Verma, based Vermaland—now certainly one of Arizona’s main land and actual property corporations—again within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, and Verma-Lallian has constructed a profile in her personal proper as a land developer with a long time within the enterprise. The Hassayampa Ranch deal, together with one other 2,069-acre land parcel in close by Buckeye that she bought in August for $136 million, has positioned her as a rising pressure in Arizona’s AI infrastructure race.
The essential and unanimous Dec. 10 determination on Hassayampa Ranch implies that Verma-Lallian can now submit an in depth zoning utility and website plans. The enormous knowledge middle will function outsize buildings crammed with aisles of GPU server racks, round the clock cooling methods, and 1.5 gigawatts of energy—equal to the facility wants of over 1,000,000 houses. It would value as a lot as $25 billion to construct, Verma-Lallian and Palihapitiya have mentioned.
Sharon Goldman
It’s a well-known story throughout the nation: These mega-scale knowledge middle initiatives, offering the computing energy underpinning the AI growth and the U.S. race in opposition to China to dominate the sector, are altering landscapes, straining vitality grids and water tables, and reshaping the economic system.
And people hyperscalers—together with Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, in addition to fast-growing AI corporations similar to OpenAI and Anthropic—are spending a whole bunch of billions a yr to construct out the bodily footprint of their AI companies. Information middle gear and infrastructure spending is on observe to rise to a trillion {dollars} a yr by 2030.
Information middle initiatives are touching off tense fights amongst builders, environmentalists, and rural residents—lots of which find yourself in locations just like the Maricopa County supervisors’ auditorium, the place locals take turns on the microphone with Silicon Valley–backed builders, and native officers accustomed to approving native ordinances and budgeting for municipal departments debate the deserves of multibillion-dollar initiatives.
A nationwide AI knowledge middle growth
For a lot of the previous 20 years, knowledge facilities have been among the many least seen items of the tech economic system—plain, boxy buildings that quietly powered web sites, e-mail, and cloud computing, drawing little public discover. The rise of generative AI has modified that. Its huge urge for food for computing energy has reworked once-modest server farms into sprawling mega-complexes spanning thousands and thousands of sq. ft and consuming electrical energy on the size of a midsize metropolis, together with huge portions of water.
The Trump administration has made successful the AI race with China a central precedence, pushing an AI Motion Plan designed to speed up knowledge middle approvals and develop the nation’s energy grid—even because it has stalled renewable vitality growth.
In an period when AI infrastructure funding accounts for a rising share of U.S. financial development, each Republicans and Democrats are vying to show they will get initiatives constructed shortly—a precedence that aligns with these of deep-pocketed tech and infrastructure traders who’ve constructed and consolidated their political affect as demand for computing energy has surged. For instance, Palihapitiya’s All-In podcast cohost, enterprise capitalist David Sacks, is now Trump’s “AI and crypto czar,” serving to steer federal technique on AI competitiveness and infrastructure.
In 2025, AI knowledge facilities emerged as a political flash level, fueling heated debates and grassroots campaigns over energy, water, land, and jobs. Critics, many from the left but in addition together with populist Republicans similar to Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, warn they’re driving up electrical energy prices and straining scarce water provides. In the meantime supporters (once more, from each side of the aisle) argue they will ship financial development and long-sought tax income to struggling communities.
Graphic by Nicolas Rapp
There may be Meta’s $10 billion, 2,250-acre Hyperion facility underway in northeast Louisiana, the place residents have complained about elevated site visitors and security dangers close to colleges and houses. There may be Dunn County, Wisconsin, the place a deliberate knowledge middle close to the small metropolis of Menomonie has drawn statewide pushback from these against constructing on prime farmland and anxious a few lack of transparency. And there’s Coweta County, a fast-developing exurb southwest of Atlanta the place residents are preventing again in opposition to deliberate knowledge middle proposals that might trigger utility pressure, noise, and light-weight air pollution.
Verma-Lallian’s plan is not any exception: Her venture has already stirred alarm amongst group members adjoining to the land who worry the influence on the wells that supply their solely entry to water, in addition to how their rural desert way of life and property values shall be affected by noise, building, and rising vitality prices. It’s a microcosm of the quiet however explosive battle unfolding on the edges of America’s AI build-out.
Water, electrical energy, noise, and disruption
As Verma-Lallian celebrated together with her workforce exterior the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ auditorium, Kathy and Ron Fletcher, ages 76 and 78 respectively, stood to the aspect, alone. The retirees and grandparents, clad in denims, moved from California to Arizona in 2020 to stay on a one-acre residential plot subsequent to the Hassayampa Ranch website, drawn by the gorgeous desert views and sunsets.
They weren’t shocked by the ruling, however they have been annoyed. Of their unincorporated rural group of Tonopah, Kathy Fletcher mentioned, residents have little cash, time, or political leverage to mount an efficient opposition. (District 3 Supervisor Debbie Lesko, a former member of Congress whose district contains Tonopah, declined Fortune’s requests for remark.)
“All we will do is plead with the folks right here,” mentioned Kathy Fletcher, noting that she and Ron have been the one residents to drive greater than an hour to the Maricopa County assembly on a weekday morning. “We’re sort of handled just like the redheaded stepchild, and so they simply assume they will throw something they need out right here,” she mentioned. “We’re having a tough time preventing the battle to inform folks, ‘You could make a distinction.’”
Sharon Goldman
The Fletchers’ next-door neighbor, Cherisse Campbell, who owns a hatchery for heritage turkeys, gathered practically 200 signatures on a Change.org petition that targeted on the environmental influence of potential gentle and noise air pollution; site visitors and infrastructure pressure; and the damaging influence on property values.
Campbell, 38, was born and raised in Maricopa County, spending most of her childhood in Shock, a northwest Phoenix suburb “again when there have been solely orange groves and desert and a giant ostrich farm.” She spoke just about on the assembly, the place she mentioned her free-range birds, which “train pure mating, nesting and young-rearing behaviors,” would face hazards with the arrival of huge trade. “We don’t want or need paved roads or buildings surrounded by concrete that may exacerbate the warmth island impact of the summer season,” she mentioned. “Connecting a foremost highway designed for high-volume site visitors from the I-10 to this website will current a damaging nightmare for these rural residents (and my birds).”
And Tonya Pearsall, a 51-year-old mom of 5 who has lived in Tonopah since 1999 and runs a small dog-breeding enterprise, Little Loves Maltipoos, mentioned she had spent a number of weekends going door-to-door to get 100 residents to signal one other petition in opposition to Verma-Lallian’s venture. “My foremost concern is water; we’re all on wells out right here,” she mentioned.
Michele Van Quathem, Verma-Lallian’s water legal professional, mentioned that when the zoning course of for the info middle is accomplished, the venture would seemingly accomplice with International Water Sources, the general public service water supplier for the realm, or the tenant may provide its personal water—which may embody digging its personal groundwater wells or constructing on-site water storage or recycling methods. Estimated water utilization shall be identified with extra certainty, she mentioned, as website planning and person discussions progress, however she emphasised, “Water sources might want to adjust to Arizona’s water legal guidelines, together with strict groundwater administration legal guidelines for the Phoenix Energetic Administration Space the place the venture is positioned.”
Verma-Lallian mentioned the event will observe setbacks from residences and protect washes—pure desert channels which might be usually dry however carry heavy flows throughout monsoon rains. She understands that space residents “desire to see houses or nothing in any respect, so that they’re not thrilled with what we’re making an attempt to do on the market.” However, she mentioned, “I believe we’ll plan it in a really considerate means” with a design that’s “aesthetically interesting.”
Verma-Lallian’s land-use legal professional, Wendy Riddell, acknowledged that residents usually really feel a way of attachment to open land they’ve lengthy used for climbing, horseback driving, or off-roading—even when that land is privately owned. And she or he identified that Tonopah residents may have the possibility to weigh in later within the course of, throughout site-plan evaluate.
At that stage, she mentioned, builders usually work with neighbors on points similar to constructing setbacks, view corridors, landscaping, and constructing top. “These are very typical issues we work by means of on a zoning utility with involved residents,” Riddell mentioned.
A bottleneck for AI development—and a chance
Verma-Lallian, who lives in Paradise Valley, Ariz., together with her husband, son, and daughter, might have Silicon Valley ties, however she additionally brings a Hollywood sheen that has jarred some within the rural group. She made headlines final yr for purchasing the Pacific Palisades house the place the Mates actor Matthew Perry drowned. In 2023 she based a movie manufacturing firm, Camelback Productions. And she or he plans to construct a film studio on one other Arizona property, not removed from the info middle website.
Throughout a drive to Hassayampa Ranch, Verma-Lallian and Scott Truitt, an actual property agent who has labored with each her and her father for many years, handed parcel after parcel of land she owns. Truitt gestured towards websites on both aspect of the highway, noting properties Verma-Lallian had purchased and bought through the years that at the moment are residential developments, warehouses, retail shops, and gasoline stations.
Graphic by Nicolas Rapp
After the earlier homeowners of the Hassayampa Ranch property had gotten residential zoning for a grasp deliberate group of hundreds of houses, the market crashed in 2008 and the venture stalled. However even because the market recovered, the venture confronted a brand new impediment: Round three years in the past, Arizona water regulators stopped issuing new certificates of assured water provide, a prerequisite for large-scale residential building—making the unique housing plan far tougher to revive.
That regulatory constraint didn’t apply to industrial makes use of like knowledge facilities, which aren’t required to acquire a certificates of assured water provide as a part of the zoning course of, though their water wants can rival or exceed these of residential developments. The excellence helped open the door for Verma-Lallian to amass the land for a unique use—one which didn’t require proving a long-term water provide upfront.
The positioning checked a number of vital bins: It sits close to the nuclear Palo Verde Producing Station. It has a pure gasoline pipeline shut sufficient {that a} future knowledge middle might be paired with new gas-fired vegetation to generate energy. And—most significantly—it gives scale. At roughly 2,000 acres, the property is giant sufficient to help an enormous knowledge middle campus, one thing Verma-Lallian mentioned is more and more uncommon within the West Valley. “There simply aren’t many privately owned websites left of this measurement,” she mentioned, noting that solely about 17% of land in Arizona is privately held, with the remainder managed by the state, the federal authorities, or Native American tribes.
The modifications occurring in Arizona’s West Valley appear nearly inevitable as growth pushes relentlessly west from Phoenix. Hassayampa Ranch is near the 25,000-acre website that Invoice Gates bought in 2017 with plans to construct Belmont, a $100 million good metropolis with tens of hundreds of houses, self-driving vehicles, and high-speed digital infrastructure (although the land stays as but undeveloped). Buckeye, the closest metropolis to Tonopah and the Hassayampa Ranch website, has grown from a inhabitants of 91,000 residents 5 years in the past to 130,000—gaining hundreds in the course of the pandemic. A Costco has moved in and a Goal is coming quickly.
Whereas Verma-Lallian’s website has seen some group pushback, normally Arizona is pro-growth, Truitt mentioned: “All people desires to do an information middle right here.” Within the West Valley, a lot of the land altering fingers as soon as belonged to farmers, he added. Rising land costs and different pressures have made agriculture more and more untenable, and lots of growing old farm homeowners haven’t any subsequent era keen to take over. “They’re simply sitting on the land,” he mentioned. He identified dairy farms, with cows seen from the highway: “They’ll be pushed out ultimately by growth. They’ve bought quite a lot of their property.”
The AI knowledge middle growth has drawn tech traders who see land and energy as the subsequent bottlenecks within the AI economic system—and due to this fact the subsequent large alternative. Chamath Palihapitiya, the billionaire investor who has bragged about his easy accessibility to the White Home, mentioned his stake in Hassayampa Ranch with Verma-Lallian is his first knowledge middle funding. The enterprise companions met by means of a mutual good friend, the fintech founder Ethan Agarwal, who’s working as a “fiercely pro-capitalism” Democrat for governor of California. Verma-Lallian declined to touch upon her personal politics, however previously she has donated to Democrats together with Hillary Clinton.
“Apart from proudly owning my house, I don’t personal any actual property,” Palihapitiya mentioned. “I didn’t take into account it a part of my investing circle of competence till realizing the energy-plus-data-center facet.”
He sees the huge AI infrastructure construct as just like the event of the web and cellular, he defined, although in these earlier funding eras, vitality was not a vital determinant of success. “Within the AI era, it’s a fulcrum asset,” he mentioned. “And the obvious wrapper of vitality is the info middle. Therefore my curiosity.”
The “better good”—however for whom?
Whereas Verma-Lallian appreciates the panorama surrounding Hassayampa Ranch, (“It’s so peaceable and exquisite,” she mentioned) she frames her growth as a sensible alternative.
She cited her personal expertise residing in a condominium constructing in Outdated City Scottsdale, the place a proposed high-rise would block residents’ view of Camelback Mountain. “Everybody was actually upset about it, however the growth moved ahead,” she mentioned. “It was a resort that was good for the group, bringing tourism income to town.”
Of Hassayampa Ranch, she mentioned, “It’s a must to have a look at the better good of what it does to these communities. Retaining zoning frozen in time can restrict a group’s potential to adapt, develop responsibly, and plan for future demand.” Nonetheless, Verma-Lallian acknowledged that residents of Tonopah “in all probability see me as extra of a developer, simply making an attempt to earn a living.”
Her ambitions prolong past knowledge facilities. With many Hollywood productions leaving California, Verma-Lallian mentioned she plans to develop one other close by website—positioned simply off Interstate 10 and never removed from Hassayampa Ranch—right into a film studio complicated that may additionally embody an indoor amusement park and a smaller knowledge middle.
“It’s solely about 4 and a half hours from Burbank,” she mentioned, including that she now spends roughly 1 / 4 of her time on movie manufacturing. She was a producer on the 2024 movie Doin’ It, which premiered at SXSW, in addition to Patel, a Shakespeare reimagining that wrapped manufacturing this summer season and stars Kal Penn. She additionally lately completed a venture that includes Depraved star Cynthia Erivo in London and has two different movies within the works.
AI growth has moved at such breakneck velocity that regardless of the billions pouring into new amenities, a central unknown stays: whether or not the sheer quantity of compute now below building shall be wanted on the timelines corporations are betting on. If demand slows, shifts, or turns into extra concentrated, the info middle growth may flip right into a bust. However after a long time in actual property, Verma-Lallian mentioned she is unfazed by the opportunity of an information middle downturn. If demand shifts, she mentioned, the websites she has developed might be repurposed for manufacturing, distribution, or different industrial makes use of. “The tendencies do hold altering,” she mentioned. “However the way in which you construct these amenities may be very comparable.”
Nonetheless, Verma-Lallian breathed a sigh of aid after the vote. She was conscious of the petitions and emails opposing her venture, and whereas she was assured she’d prevail, it was on no account a foregone conclusion. One other AI knowledge middle venture in Chandler, a bustling suburb southeast of Phoenix, was voted down by metropolis officers this month after large pushback from residents, though it was backed by former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
After her triumph on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors listening to and a fast tour of Hassayampa Ranch, Verma-Lallian headed again to Los Angeles, the place a gathering with Netflix and a name with an investor awaited.
Again in Tonopah, Kathy Fletcher mentioned she bears Verma-Lallian no sick will—at the same time as she continues to oppose the venture. “I believe she’s a really profitable younger woman,” Fletcher mentioned. “I want her quite a lot of success. I simply don’t need a knowledge middle in my yard.”
For others locally, the sense of loss feels private. “We used to have the ability to see the Milky Method—that’s why we moved out right here,” mentioned Tonya Pearsall. “I’m not anti-growth. I’m conservative. I get capitalism.”
However to permit industrial growth on this otherworldly desert, with its vibrant ecosystem of washes and saguaro? “It’s painful,” she mentioned. “I may break down and cry.”
