Washtenaw County residents gathered for an open house hosted by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Michigan about their computing facility, proposed for construction in the township. Held on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, the open house was meant to answer questions about the project.
The open house followed concerns from the community and local leaders about a lack of transparency in the project. At the open house, held at Marriott Ypsilanti at Eagle Crest, information was presented on poster boards, arranged in a semi-circle and divided between project stakeholders. The formatting drew criticism from attendees, with some likening it to a science fair.
“This here feels like gaslighting in the form of a science fair,” said Finn Bowbear, an Ann Arbor resident with concerns about the project. “There’s people with a single name on their name tag talking next to their designated colorful poster board, but you don’t know who you are actually talking to because there is no last name. You can’t follow up with them.”
The project has been widely referred to as a data center by the public, a term U-M and LANL have pushed back on, instead dubbing it a high-performing computing facility.
“We don’t use the same kind of computers; they are not as large; they are not the same architecture. They are different things,” said Patrick Fitch, deputy director for science, technology and engineering at LANL. He said the facility is not a commercial data center and will not conduct the same kind of work as a commercial facility.
The $1.25 billion project will create two facilities: a federal research facility and an academic one, as well as an electrical substation to power the facilites. At the open house, LANL displayed poster boards listing the types of research and computing the federal facility will do, including medical and health, climate, clean energy, mobility related to autonomous driving technology, advanced materials and national security.
Critics and opponents of the project have pushed back on LANL's involvement, citing concerns with LANL's role in creating the atomic bomb. LANL, one of the U.S. Energy Department's 16 research and development laboratories in the country, was established in 1943 to conduct research for the Manhattan Project during World War II.
The research done by the federal facility in Ypsilanti Township will be computational work, Fitch said. The simulation and computational research conducted in the facility will inform LANL's nuclear weapons program, he said.
"Aspects of nuclear weapons are key to our simulation expertise and we want this loop to include large investments in national security, so that spins back into the basic science, and what we learn here, on that list of non-nuclear weapons stuff, spins back into nuclear weapons," Fitch said. "One of the two computers we are planning [in] our 55 megawatts if this facility is built, would be for what is called secret restricted data. It is going to be for the nuclear weapons program; not exclusively, but being able to do that work."
U-M and LANL are currently looking at two possible sites in Ypsilanti Township to build the facility, posters presented at the open house showed. The first possible site is located on the north side of Textile Road. The other site is the American Center for Mobility, or ACM, which sits on a large piece of property near Willow Run. The site is a former Hydramatic plant that was owned by General Motors.
"We are still looking at two sites and we are doing our due diligence and analysis of those two sites," Chris Kolb told The Eastern Echo. Kolb is the vice president for government relations at U-M.
In previous Ypsilanti Township Board meetings, board members have expressed a preference for the ACM site, which they say is better suited for the proposed facility. In a previous interview with The Echo, Township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo said she did not think the Textile Road location was zoned suitable for the project. As a public university, U-M is exempt from zoning laws.
In a previous interview, Stumbo expressed frustrations about a lack of transparency about the project.
"We asked to be at the table and U of M flat out refused," Stumbo said in a previous interview. She said the updates the township received on the project were limited at the meetings that did occur.
U-M is not required to include the township in decision-making for the project. Kolb said U-M met with township board leaders at least four times.
"We have met with the township leadership, and we have never denied having a meeting with them, and we have provided answers to the questions," Kolb said.
Despite some concerns raised by Michigan lawmakers, including a bill introduced by State Rep. Jimmie Wilson Jr. to callback $100 million previously pledged by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation to support the project, Kolb said he is optimistic about state support for the facility.
"This project is a priority for the governor," Kolb said. "There is political support for this project in Lansing."
Some residents, however, are not convinced. Natalie Zimmer, an Ypsilanti resident and Eastern Michigan University alumnus, opposes data centers in general because of their environmental impact and concerns about the potential effect of artificial intelligence on critical thinking skills. Zimmer attended the open house hoping to learn more about the project and was disappointed by the setup and lack of new information provided.
"I was hoping to actually learn more about what was going on with this data center, and I did not," Zimmer said. "I would like to see more transparency."
