Published November 11, 2026 04:03PM
As America grapples with the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence data centers, two brothers have set out to map infrastructure project proposals nationwide—including those near public lands and national parks.
Will Pattiz is the cofounder of More Than Just Parks, an independent public lands publication that tracks AI data centers. According to his research, at least 14 proposed data center projects are within ten miles of a national park boundary. His data also shows that 38 sites are planned within 25 miles of a national park, and 131 are within 50 miles.
“The basic idea is that a lot of these [projects] are being done under the cloak of darkness or secrecy, and we want folks to know where they’re coming in and who’s building them,” Pattiz, a resident of Portland, Oregon, told Outside. “The stance that we take is that we don’t want them on public lands.”
“Places like Utah, for example, have a huge amount of data center projects and some of the biggest ones that are being proposed,” Pattiz said. “Just depending on the size and scale, they take up a massive amount of resources and will have impacts on public lands one way or the other, whether it’s taking water or the land itself.”
Data Center Sprawl Across the United States
Data centers are rapidly popping up across the United States, fueled by the computing needs of artificial intelligence and cloud-based software. These centers house massive servers, data storage systems, and networking equipment, and they require sizable amounts of electricity and water to run and maintain the hardware.
“The question that we want to see asked is: ‘What is the public benefit from this?’” Pattiz said. “So far, the ones that have been proposed on public lands, there’s no public benefit that’s been outlined.”
To use Pattiz’s map, a user inputs their zip code, and the site shows the closest data center or proposed facility. The site then suggests how the center will affect utility costs, as well as the groups that support the center.
“You can go through that discovery process yourself to decide whether you support [the center] or not, because these are things that are going to impact all of us, and you can decide where you land on that,” Pattiz said.
Proposed Data Centers Nationwide
The map auto-populates as more information becomes available. As of this writing, the tool reflects 2,086 data centers, 741 of which are still in the proposal phase. Of those, 77 are located within ten miles of protected land like national parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness or conservation areas. Roughly half are in the American West.
In Virginia, 97 data centers are proposed, and 12 are within 25 miles of Shenandoah National Park.
At least 25 data centers are proposed in Indiana, according to the map, and eight are located within 25 miles of Indiana Dunes National Park.
The map also includes several construction proposals that are extremely close to iconic National Park Service sites.
Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona
Arizona alone has 26 active proposals, with three within 25 miles of a national park. In January, the City of Page sold roughly 500 acres to developers planning to build a $10 billion data center next to Horseshoe Bend, an iconic viewpoint along the Colorado River. The 500-acre parcel was previously protected for outdoor recreation. According to the City of Page, the proposal is undergoing public review and has not yet been formally adopted, but a planning and zoning meeting is scheduled for November 17.
According to Pattiz’s map, the center is also located about five miles from the northeastern edge of Grand Canyon National Park near Lees Ferry.
Project Beehive in Utah
Just outside of Price, Utah, Pattiz found that a company called Valar Atomics applied for more than 9,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land for data center buildouts, including permits for hundreds of small nuclear reactors, a fuel plant, and nuclear waste storage.
According to a report published by NPR, the so-called Project Beehive would produce about 9.6 gigawatts of power for data centers. Currently, the entire state of Utah produces less than half of that on average, NPR reports.
The land is about two hours from both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
Antelope Data Center in Cedar City, Utah
Located about 40 miles from Zion National Park, Antelope Data Center is slated for development as part of a 640-acre, 1.5-gigawatt project that will include an on-site natural gas power plant, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The Iron County Commission approved a conditional use permit in June 2026.
What’s Next?
Large-scale data center rollouts represent an inflection point in American history, Pattiz said. As construction crews have erected these centers, they have become political lightning rods in American towns and cities.
Pattiz believes that giving Americans transparent, readily available information about where big tech is breaking ground will help them track what developers are building in their backyards.
“At the end of the day, data is data,” he added. “Whether or not there’s a need for these things is a totally separate question from where they’re being built and what impact they’re going to have on you and the places that you love.”
