OpenAI's Michigan data center project, which requires power equivalent to 750,000 homes, secured $16 billion in financing from Blackstone and PIMCO in April after Blue Owl Capital abandoned a $10 billion commitment in December, signaling a shift in which institutional investors…
The Blue Owl to Blackstone pivot is the underreported financial story here: one major investor walked away from a $10 billion financing commitment in December, and another walked in with $16 billion in April. The institutional capital has decided that AI infrastructure is worth funding through local opposition, an attorney general's appeal, and a township in open revolt.
The irony is not subtle. OpenAI built its name on dematerializing intelligence. Its latest Michigan project will draw power roughly equivalent to 750,000 homes Reuters, a figure analysts use to calibrate comparable facilities. The company that promised a world where computation has no physical weight is erecting one of the most resource-intensive construction projects Michigan has ever seen.
The multimedia ad campaign started in January MLive, shortly after Michigan regulators approved power contracts for the project on an expedited timeline that blocked public contestation. The ads run on streaming services, YouTube, television, and in newspapers. They spotlight local jobs, infrastructure investment, and water conservation. Related Digital launched a website to counter what a spokesperson called factual information as additional questions arise.
Residents are not buying it. Township meetings have been packed and volatile for months. In December, more than 100 people waved handmade signs and chanted No Secret Deals at a protest in Saline E&E News. If it magically went away, I would be very happy because I could go back to my quiet life, one resident told Michigan Public Radio.
The financial timeline tells its own story. In December, Blue Owl Capital — Oracle's largest backer for data center projects — walked away from a $10 billion financing commitment, citing concerns about AI spending and rising debt MLive. Four months later, Related Digital announced a $16 billion financing package anchored by Blackstone and PIMCO MLive. Bank of America structured the deal. Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo advised. The project had simply gotten too large and too politically toxic for one investor to carry alone.
The financing closed anyway. Institutional capital has decided that AI infrastructure is a new asset class worth funding through regulatory uncertainty and an ongoing appeal by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel MLive challenging the state utility commission's approval of the power contracts. Oracle, co-building the facility, has told investors it expects its AI business to generate roughly $90 billion in annual revenue by 2027 Business Insider, a projection that explains the urgency behind building at this scale. The project is being developed by Related Digital, whose affiliate is connected to Related Cos., which built Hudson Yards in New York.
Construction is underway on 250 acres off West Michigan Avenue MLive. The campus will span three buildings, each roughly 550,000 square feet, on what was farmland until recently. The most beautiful view on my drive home is completely a wasteland now, said Josh Lebaron, who lives nearby.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed bipartisan legislation exempting data centers from the state's sales and use tax and fast-tracked regulatory approval. She called it the largest economic project in Michigan history E&E News. When the utility commission received more than 5,000 public comments on the power contracts, its chair noted the very real frustration, concern, and even anger sweeping the state.
The stated benefits are real: 2,500 union construction jobs OpenAI, more than 450 permanent positions OpenAI, $300 million in annual ratepayer savings (projected) MLive, $14 million to local fire departments MLive, preservation of more than 750 acres of open space and farmland. The closed-loop cooling system recirculates water rather than consuming it evaporatively, a point the ad campaign emphasizes repeatedly.
But the legal challenges are real too. Related Digital and the landowners sued Saline Township after its board voted 4-1 to deny rezoning MLive last September. The township settled weeks later, avoiding what its attorney called a costly court battle it could not win. Kathryn Haushalter, a Marine Corps veteran whose property abuts the site, has tried repeatedly to reopen the lawsuit and intervene. A judge denied her most recent attempt in April. She plans to appeal.
Attorney General Nessel's appeal of the MPSC contract approval is pending. What she's actually challenging — the rate terms, the expedited process, the regulatory jurisdiction — matters for whether the project faces a genuine legal obstacle or a procedural inconvenience.
The underlying tension is not really about this project. It is about who bears the cost of building the physical layer of artificial intelligence. The dematerialized promise, intelligence without resource constraints, computation without consequence, collides with the reality: a 1.4-gigawatt load MLive, a multi-billion-dollar campus, a transformed landscape. OpenAI told Michigan it would save ratepayers $300 million a year. The company that makes ChatGPT also burns power at a scale this state has not seen before.
The ads will keep running. So will the protests. The financing is locked. The question now is whether the legal challenges land, and whether the residents of Saline Township have any recourse left to stop what their township board could not.