Stargate Michigan
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Stargate Michigan is an artificial intelligence data center campus under construction in Saline Township, Michigan, about 10 miles southwest of Ann Arbor in Washtenaw County. It is part of the Stargate Project, the multi-state computing buildout led by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. The site is developed by Related Digital, financed with Blackstone, and built for OpenAI's workloads on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Officials held a ceremonial groundbreaking on 1 June 2026, attended by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The project is planned for roughly 1.4 gigawatts of power and a construction cost near $16 billion, and it became one of the most contested data center proposals in the United States after the local township board first voted it down.[1][2][3]
The campus is nicknamed "The Barn," after a historic red barn that the developer is preserving at the entrance off Michigan Avenue. With the Michigan site, OpenAI said the Stargate program had pushed its total announced capacity past 8 gigawatts.[2][4]
Stargate Michigan is a single campus of three large single-story buildings, each about 550,000 square feet, sited on roughly 250 acres of what was farmland. The buildings will house Oracle Cloud Infrastructure hardware running OpenAI training and inference workloads. Related Digital, the developer, describes the facility as a "1,383-megawatt Stargate facility," which is where the rounded 1.4 GW figure comes from. That draw is comparable to a large nuclear reactor.[2][3][5]
The project was first announced on 30 October 2025 by OpenAI, Oracle, and Related Digital as a campus with "more than a gigawatt" of capacity. It was presented as part of the OpenAI and Oracle agreement to add 4.5 gigawatts of Stargate capacity in the United States, an expansion that consolidates several planned buildings into one large site.[5]
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Location | Saline Township, Washtenaw County, Michigan (about 10 miles southwest of Ann Arbor) |
| Nickname | "The Barn" (after a preserved historic red barn at the entrance) |
| Lead partners | OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank (Stargate); developed by Related Digital |
| Financing | Equity from Related Digital and Blackstone-affiliated funds; fixed-rate debt anchored by PIMCO-managed funds |
| Buildings | Three single-story buildings, about 550,000 sq ft each, on roughly 250 acres |
| Power | About 1.4 GW (1,383 MW), supplied by DTE Energy |
| Construction cost | About $16 billion (up from a $7 billion initial figure) |
| Equipment cost | An additional $30 billion to $40 billion for Oracle to outfit the buildings |
| Announced | 30 October 2025 |
| Groundbreaking ceremony | 1 June 2026 |
| Target completion | End of 2027 |
The Stargate Project itself was unveiled in January 2025 as a planned $500 billion buildout aimed at 10 gigawatts of AI computing, with OpenAI and SoftBank as lead funders and Oracle among the principal partners. Stargate Michigan extends that program into the Midwest.[4]
Related Digital, the data center arm of the real estate firm Related Companies, is the site developer and a project investor. Equity comes from Related Digital and funds affiliated with Blackstone, paired with fixed-rate financing anchored by PIMCO-managed funds and accounts. Oracle is financing the buildings' internal computing equipment and a new battery storage investment tied to the power supply. The general contractor is Walbridge, a Detroit-based construction firm, and the work is union-built in partnership with North America's Building Trades Unions.[1][3]
At the 1 June 2026 ceremony, the assembled partners included Oracle, Related Digital, Blackstone, OpenAI, and Walbridge, alongside Governor Whitmer. Oracle's Magouyrk used the event to put a number on the hardware bill, saying internal data center components would cost roughly $30 billion to $40 billion more than the construction figure. That brings the all-in figure reported for the complex to about $56 billion. Altman struck a more reflective note, telling reporters that "people are right to be anxious" about AI even as the company expands its physical footprint.[1][2]
The headline construction figure grew sharply over the project's life. Related Digital's Michigan plans were initially framed around a roughly $7 billion investment, but by the June groundbreaking the construction and development cost had reached about $16 billion. Counting Oracle's equipment spend of $30 billion to $40 billion, the total reported cost of the complex is near $56 billion, which state officials have called the single largest economic investment in Michigan's history.[2]
The three buildings total roughly 1.65 million square feet. Related Digital says the campus uses a closed-loop cooling system that limits daily water use to about that of an office building, and the company is pursuing LEED certification. Related expects to finish the campus at the end of 2027 and to begin generating cash flow shortly after.[2][5]
Stargate Michigan became a flashpoint because the land had to be rezoned from agricultural use, and many residents did not want it. In September 2025, the Saline Township planning commission recommended against the proposal, and the township board followed with a 4 to 1 vote to deny rezoning roughly 575 acres of farmland for industrial use.[6]
Related Digital and the landowners sued the township within days, alleging exclusionary zoning, the legal claim that a municipality has unreasonably barred a lawful land use. Within weeks the township settled. The court-approved agreement let the project proceed despite the board's vote, and it attached conditions: water-use limits, noise caps, and constraints on expansion, plus a community benefits package worth about $14 million. Construction began in late 2025, well before the June 2026 ceremony, which functioned more as a milestone celebration than a literal first shovel.[6][2]
The settlement and the community investments did not settle the broader argument. Saline residents and neighbors have continued to object to the strain on land, water, and the electrical grid, and the dispute has rippled across the state. By early February 2026, at least 19 Michigan municipalities had enacted moratoriums on new data center development, and lawmakers had floated a bipartisan proposal for a one-year statewide pause. Washtenaw County passed a March resolution supporting local moratoriums.[6][7]
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 30 October 2025 | OpenAI, Oracle, and Related Digital announce the Saline Township site |
| September 2025 | Township board votes 4 to 1 against rezoning about 575 acres of farmland |
| September 2025 | Related Digital and landowners sue, alleging exclusionary zoning |
| Late 2025 | Township settles; construction begins under court-approved agreement |
| Early February 2026 | At least 19 Michigan municipalities have data center moratoriums |
| 1 June 2026 | Ceremonial groundbreaking with Altman, Magouyrk, and Whitmer |
| End of 2027 (planned) | Targeted completion of the campus |
Power is the defining constraint of the project. The campus is designed to draw about 1.4 gigawatts, supplied entirely by DTE Energy from existing generation augmented by a new battery storage investment financed by Oracle. The arrangement runs through a special contract rate rather than ordinary residential service, and OpenAI has said it intends to "pay its own way" on energy so that the load does not raise costs for other DTE customers. That commitment, and whether it holds up over the life of the lease, has been central to both the regulatory case and local skepticism.[1][3][5]
The energy question is also why the Michigan campus carries weight beyond the state. A single 1.4 GW load is roughly equivalent to a nuclear reactor, and securing that much firm power is one of the hardest parts of building frontier AI infrastructure. OpenAI framed the Saline site as the increment that carried the Stargate program past 8 gigawatts of announced capacity, on the way toward the original 10 GW commitment.[2][4]
Alongside the legal settlement, the partners attached a series of community investments meant to offset the project's local footprint. The settlement included about $14 million in direct investments, roughly $4 million toward a township farmland preservation trust fund and about $8 million for area fire services. At the June groundbreaking, the partners added a $10 million donation to renovate and expand the Saline Recreation Center, including an enlarged pool with a zero-depth entry leisure area, a lazy river, and improved childcare space.[1][8]
The project is also pitched on jobs and tax revenue. The partners say it will create more than 2,500 union construction jobs during the build, then about 450 permanent jobs on site and roughly 1,500 more across Washtenaw County once operating. Related Digital has estimated the campus could generate on the order of $1 billion in tax revenue over the life of the lease, supporting local, county, and state schools and services.[3][5]