ANN ARBOR, MI — When a project tops a billion dollars, it’s hard to imagine anything slowing it down two years in. But that’s what a group of University of Michigan faculty, staff and students are trying to accomplish.
A coalition of university members gathered Tuesday night in the Ann Arbor District Library to discuss methods to potentially halt the university’s plans to build a high-performance computing facility with Los Alamos National Laboratory. The “UM against the Data Center” petition had accumulated nearly 900 signatures prior to Tuesday, with organizers estimating it would reach more than 1,000 by the night’s end. Around 100 people attended the meeting, with residents spilling outside the room.
“I really don’t trust anything they’re telling us,” Samantha Colquitt, a university staffer in the Shared Services Center, said.
The university and the laboratory have plans to develop a new supercomputing facility to power research in health, energy and national security. It will immediately increase capacity for research serving the public good, the university reports.
But the security section of the site has drawn outrage from residents. Los Alamos, the laboratory known for its role in the creation of the atomic bomb, previously told MLive that while the company won’t design nuclear weapons at UM, it will “learn things from these collaborations and we will bring them on to the weapons program.”
Some university employees are deeply concerned by the classified work Los Alamos would be doing on the site. Several of them expressed confusion about why a public university is involved in a project that will potentially be engaged in military industrial work. The University has emphasized that no weapons would be physically built at the site, but critics say modern nuclear weapons research increasingly relies on computing rather than manufacturing.
“A large part of this data center is not going to be used for the community,” Nick Androski, a UM graduate student, said.
The group split into smaller teams, each taking on a different aspect of the protest. One focused on community outreach, while another worked on reshaping the messaging around the Los Alamos site. Organizer Nathan Kim, a 25‑year‑old doctorate student in the School of Information, outlined several logistical steps he hopes the group can take.
He said outreach, research, pressure on the Michigan Board of Regents and labor action are the main ways the group could make an impact.
Kim, who runs the Ann Arbor Tenants Union, said he’s spoken with other union representatives to try and form a broader coalition against the Los Alamos project. He has talked with members from the Graduate Employees Organization, Lecturers Employee Organization, University Staff United, Huron Valley Area Labor Federation and the University of Michigan Professional Nurses Council to “try and get them on board.”
“The primary thing we’re working on is to grow, and to build this movement. And if we do that, then I think we can grow to the size where we are one of the major players. It’s not just DTE, Los Alamos, the University of Michigan, it’s also this community movement,” Kim said.
Convincing the university’s Board of Regents, who previously authorized the purchase of about 124 acres of vacant land for the site, is also a priority. Amir Makled, who is running for the board, spoke to the group.
“They’re going to be draining the city’s resources,” Makled said. “That’s shameful.”
Although Kim said he was encouraged by the turnout, he acknowledged the group faces a steep challenge in trying to slow the project’s development. The project is expected to begin construction in two years and is nearing a site selection between two Ypsilanti Township locations. It will cost the university $850 million and the laboratory $300 million, according to documents from the Michigan Strategic Fund, which is providing a $100 million grant.
But Kim said the community’s protests has already succeeded.
Construction was initially slated to begin in 2026, the university said, and has now been delayed two years. There have been several different site options since the project was initially announced in December 2024.
“Even a project of this size is always more fragile than it seems. We already have seen them push back the timeline for this project two full years because of the existing community movement,” Kim said.
“Our job is to talk to university workers, get them to see this obscene use of money and push them to push the university to reallocate these funds.”
Kim felt they succeeded Tuesday night. As the group departed for the evening, they were encouraged to sign up for a Signal group chat with a simple title.
