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09/25/26, 11:25 PM
# Miles: Future of news collides with AI, data center debates | Opinion
Source: [https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/2026/09/24/miles-future-local-news-collides-with-ai-and-data-center-debates-in-saline-opinion/91891770007/](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/2026/09/24/miles-future-local-news-collides-with-ai-and-data-center-debates-in-saline-opinion/91891770007/)
Sept\. 24, 2026, 11:01 p\.m\. ET
The least\-discussed aspect of the data center debate in Michigan may be among the most consequential: What happens if they succeed?
Certainly, the much\-discussed impacts on jobs, water, noise and the environment are important considerations, as is the interest in economic development and the importance of competing with China\.
But will the AI work that data centers support kill local news as we know it? If you're ranking credible doomsday scenarios, this one just rocketed up the charts\.
The arrival of the AI revolution isn't negotiable\. It is here\. Data centers are an essential part\.
The creators of the data center growing out of the fields of Saline Township have attempted to mitigate many community concerns\. The center, which will be bigger than 38 football fields, is part of the Stargate Project, a White House\-endorsed, tech\-led $500 billion public\-private investment to supply the computer\-power demands of artificial intelligence\. It's led by Japanese\-based SoftBank and OpenAI, the controversial ChatGPT owner that is[supported by a $20 million investment from the University of Michigan](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2026/05/09/university-michigan-endowment-2-billion-open-ai-investment-altman-musk/90009140007/)\.
[](https://www.detroitnews.com/picture-gallery/news/michigan/2026/08/31/construction-update-saline-twp-data-center-project-aka-the-barn/91490973007/)What happens inside "The Barn," as it's dubbed, may have a more significant impact than what's happening outside\.
The investment may advance what Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht called the "[largest theft of labor in human history](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2026/09/24/ai-called-largest-theft-of-labor-in-history-by-microsoft-exec/91919911007/)" and "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions," according to internal documents revealed in newly released court records\.
Those records were unsealed in a case brought by the New York Times and our former sister papers at the Tribune Company\. They sued OpenAI in 2023,[arguing that the tech company intentionally bypassed paywalls to ingest millions of news articles](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/tech/2023/12/27/new-york-times-openai-microsoft-lawsuit/72038046007/)to train ChatGPT and other large language model \(LLM\) AI\. When you query Google, ChatGPT or other search engines, they're often and increasingly serving you the information without requiring users to visit the publishers who paid to produce it\.
The impact on news organizations is undeniable\. According to Chartbeat, Google search traffic to U\.S\. news sites is down 38% since the onset of AI\-generated answers\. Lost audience is lost revenue\. Publishers around the country, including McClatchy, Lee Enterprises and[MLive](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2026/09/02/mlive-to-stop-printing-its-newspapers-shift-fully-to-digital/91578750007/)have recently announced major cost\-cutting moves that are too coincidental to entirely separate them from the AI\-influenced decline in readership\. The Detroit News has fared better, but it is not immune\.
News organizations benefit from search engines\. And the nation is increasingly embracing the positives of AI\. Developers, utilities, economic development organizations and universities are among those racing to reap the benefits in profits or productivity\.
The potential impact on local journalism is another clear example that even the tech giants recognize the dangers\. What will AI\-driven results share when the news industry shrinks so much it can no longer produce the content people seek?
“Our AI content strategy has started a ‘doom loop’ that will hurt the performance of our models and the entire web at the same time," according to an internal Microsoft document quoted in the court records\. "It is highly unusual that an end\-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers, but that is the situation we have created for our LLM business with respect to its ‘content supply chain,’” it reads\.
If the Microsoft prediction is true, the Saline data center might someday be viewed as one cog in a giant journalism\-killing factory\.
Which leads to the question: What happens if it succeeds?
*Gary Miles is Editor and Publisher of The Detroit News\.*