California Judge Pauses Sebastian Rucci’s Proposed AI Datacenter in Imperial County

Rucci, a 66-year-old lawyer with a complicated past, identified the site in late 2024 by zooming in on a map of a large block of brown earth in the Sonoran desert, just north of the Mexican border. The barren plot sits between alfalfa fields and desert suburbs near the city of Imperial, population 22,000. He proposed a nearly 1m-square-foot facility, about the size of 16 football fields combined, and said he had already invested about $5m. If approved and passed to a builder, he said he expected “big multipliers of that” in return.

The project emerged amid a datacenter construction boom driven by artificial intelligence, which requires far more computing power than traditional internet services and enormous buildings to house millions of servers. The Guardian described Rucci as part of a new class of middlemen seeking land in rural, underdeveloped areas desperate for an economic boost. Rucci said he knew little about datacenters a couple of years ago but made calls to people he knew in Silicon Valley and quickly realized the industry was huge. He described himself as an expert at the tedious legwork of packaging permits and plans and said he proved adept at selling county lawmakers on a bright future of economic development. Rucci said his sales skills also secured him a direct line to Google, and emails between him and county agencies show Google floated interest in being the tenant, according to The Guardian. With the promise of potential partnerships and support from construction unions, he moved ahead with the project.

The site had two advantages that mattered to Rucci: it was zoned for industrial use in unincorporated Imperial County, allowing him to apply for an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act that would avoid the environmental permitting process, and he was able to work with the local energy provider to eventually get 330 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a city the size of Tallahassee. The location also presented obstacles. Temperatures regularly rose past 100F, water was scarce in an agricultural area supplied by the beleaguered Colorado River, and residents were skeptical of a new, energy-guzzling neighbor.

That skepticism turned into organized resistance. Residents told The Guardian they feared increased emissions, harm to rare desert wildlife, constraints on the power grid, a rapidly dwindling water supply and noise. Rucci denies the project will have such effects. Francisco Leal, who lives in a residential neighborhood across the street from the proposed datacenter, said the project was presented as a savior but is seen by the community as a threat. “This project was presented as a Noah’s Ark that’s going to come save everybody,” Leal said. “But the community sees this project as a Trojan horse.”

The judge’s ruling last month put Rucci’s developments on pause. The Guardian reported that despite his bold start, Rucci could become a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when a businessman moves too fast without community buy-in.