House oversight subcommittee hears warning on 'Stargate' data center’s costs, water use and privacy risks

Christy Gillenwater, a retired senior management consultant, told the Michigan House Oversight Subcommittee on Corporate Subsidies and State Investments that the proposed Stargate hyperscale data center in Saline Township poses financial, environmental and privacy risks to Michigan.

Gillenwater described Stargate as "a $500,000,000,000 proposed AI infrastructure initiative" and said the overall consortium — which she listed as including NVIDIA, CoreWeave, Samsung, SK Hynix, Arm, G42, Oracle and others — aims to generate about 10 gigawatts of data‑center capacity. She told the committee Related Digital is the developer for the Saline Township site and estimated the local build at roughly $7 billion for 1.5 gigawatts of capacity.

Why it matters: Gillenwater argued that hyperscale data centers concentrate financial and physical risk. She warned that projects often omit full infrastructure costs and that utilities and taxpayers can be left to absorb upgrades or stranded‑asset liabilities. "By the time the impacts become concrete, the political leverage of local communities has largely evaporated," she told the committee.

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