ROCHESTER, Mich. – Oakland University hosted a town hall meeting for students, faculty and community members to ask questions about a proposed AI data center. Stephen W. Mackey, senior vice president for finance and administration, addressed concerns and outlined potential benefits.
Mackey said the project could provide students with research opportunities, hands-on learning experiences and training on emerging technologies. He also pointed to possible internships and job opportunities. Mackey said the center would expand the university’s capability for high-powered computing in classrooms and labs.
Recommended Videos
The center would not be built or funded by OU. Instead, the university plans to enter a public-private partnership (P3) with Fairmount Practices, a company with experience in higher education and technology. In the proposed agreement, Fairmount would finance and construct the facility.
University leaders said they are soliciting feedback from faculty on potential partnerships. OU would retain approval rights over all tenants, meaning it would control which companies operate in the facility. Tenants would be selected based on their willingness to partner with the university through internships, scholarships or other opportunities.
Some attendees raised concerns about sustainability and the potential environmental impact of data centers. Mackey said that the university is “committed to no reduction of green space,” explaining that the design would include measures to minimize heat recapture and noise mitigation.
Students also asked about how the project aligns with OU’s goal of carbon neutrality by minimizing the ecological footprint of its facilities and operations.
“We are calculating this into our carbon neutrality plans,” Mackey said. “We’re keeping that commitment. We’re not going to break that commitment. The balance between energy consumption and compute, and then in our educational needs, we’ve got to find that balance between the three. But we’re not going to let one side outbalance the other.”
If the project does not move forward, OU would likely need to take on debt to upgrade its infrastructure.
“We would probably have to issue debt, and that is paid from tuition, and that’s how we would have to upgrade our infrastructure,” Mackey said. “With a P3 opportunity, what you’re doing is you’re using other, what we call other people’s money ... and so they carry the capital stack, but they also generate the revenue to pay for it.”
Building and operating a data center independently would be challenging for the university.
“We’re educators and researchers. So, for us to build a data center on our own and try to be an owner operator of it, we probably not be very successful at that. So, but to upgrade our current infrastructure into a modern data center would probably take a bond issuance of 10s of millions of dollars, and then that would have to be covered off of general fund revenue.”
The planning process is divided into four phases. The first phase, feasibility, runs from March to June 2026 and focuses on financial viability and identifying potential partners.
The second phase, due diligence, included a detailed evaluation of site conditions. The third phase will focus on building layout, site design and technical systems, along with preparing construction documents and specifications.
The fourth and final phase is construction. Mackey emphasized that Oakland could opt out of the process at any time.