‘We Did Not Invite You’: A Nuclear Lab Wants a Data Center in This Town‘We Did Not Invite You.’ Citizens Rage at Town Hall Over Proposed Nuclear AI Data Center

Los Alamos National Laboratory is where the atomic bomb was built. Now it has teamed up with the University of Michigan on a $1.2 billion hyperscale data center in Ypsilanti Township. At a town hall in September, the university sent people to explain; residents shouted from the first minute to the last.

‘Cancer’ versus ‘national security’

University officials said the facility would improve cancer care, strengthen the power grid and speed up drug discovery. The room laughed. Someone shouted, ‘How about healthcare?’

The lab did not show up. It sent a letter instead, and the letter conceded something: some of the computing would relate to nuclear modernisation. Modelling only, it said — no warheads, no plutonium on site.

‘Smaller than a mall’ is not small

The project's lead engineer said the facility was far smaller than commercial data centers, pointing to a slide comparing it with a nearby OpenAI project worth tens of billions.

A resident who had worked in data centers around the country pushed back: you picked an outlier as your yardstick. Against an average American data center, this one sits in the top bracket. However handsome, it is still loud, still has emissions, still has generators, and it belongs in the middle of nowhere, not next to schools and apartments.

People are already selling their homes

The township attorney had called the site a ‘high-value target’; the lab's letter said the term had no basis. Residents asked: the name the whole world ties to the atomic bomb, plus $1.2 billion of computers — how is that not one?

The township supervisor spoke last and said the university had lied throughout. ‘It started with a lie. People are leaving, they're selling their homes because of the thought of Los Alamos being here. That's a fact. The emotion and the rage is fear. We don't deserve this. Please, change your mind.’