Inside the long, bitter fight over one man’s quest to build the biggest AI datacenter in California

Sebastian Rucci zoomed in on a map in late 2024, looking closely at a large block of brown earth. The barren plot sandwiched between sprawling alfalfa fields and sleepy desert suburbs was exactly what he’d been searching for – the perfect place to realize his dream of building the largest artificial intelligence datacenter in California. The dusty expanse wasn’t an obvious location. It was in the Sonoran desert, just north of the Mexican border, where temperatures regularly rose past 100F (37.8C). Water was scar…

By the Truvace deskOctober 17, 20262 min read1 sourceJournalismTRV-2026-1705· cite & verify

Inside the long, bitter fight over one man’s quest to build the biggest AI datacenter in California

In brief

A lawyer-turned-developer, Sebastian Rucci, picked a barren industrial-zoned plot in Imperial County, in the Sonoran desert near the Mexican border, for what he hoped would be California's largest AI datacenter. He sought an exemption from the state's environmental review law and secured a 330-megawatt power supply. Local opposition grew into more than half a dozen lawsuits, recall efforts and a temporary moratorium, and a county judge has now halted the project until it clears a full environmental review.

The case shows how the AI buildout is pulling speculative middlemen into rural areas that need economic help but have limited water and a hot climate. The promised jobs and tax revenue come from the developer, and he denies the project would harm the environment. Whether the project is ever built depends on a review that has not yet taken place, and the article does not show a confirmed tenant.

Main points

The planned facility is nearly 1m square feet, about the size of 16 football fields, on land sandwiched between alfalfa fields and desert suburbs.
Because the land was zoned industrial, the developer applied for an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act to fast-track permitting.
The developer secured 330 megawatts of electricity from the local provider, which the article compares to powering a city the size of Tallahassee.
Opposition has included more than half a dozen lawsuits, recall efforts against supportive officials and a temporary 45-day moratorium.
Google said it is not involved in a datacenter project in Imperial County, although the developer's emails described the site as serving Google's Gemini training.

The problem

Residents say a proposed AI datacenter threatens air, wildlife, power and water in a hot desert county, and a judge has paused it pending a full environmental review.

The rundown

The developer began scouting the site in late 2024. He described himself as skilled at packaging permits and plans, and emails to county agencies cited interest from Google. Google's spokesperson said the company is not involved in a datacenter project in Imperial County and did not answer questions about its relationship with him. He said the response made sense because there is no formal agreement.

An industry tracker quoted in the article says major California projects average about seven years to complete, compared with about three in Texas. Because land and power are scarce for big tech companies, developers who can shorten timelines may command a large premium. The article presents this as the incentive behind a wave of new datacenter developers nationwide.

The developer's background includes a 2010 liquor-sales conviction, a roughly three-year suspension of his law license beginning in 2019 and at least two corporate bankruptcies. He has registered several new businesses for the campus, including an umbrella LLC called Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing. A resident across the street called the project a Trojan horse rather than the Noah's Ark it was presented as.