Het verhaal
On 7 Sep 2026 Ars Technica reported on accountability gaps around the $3.2 billion Lake Mariner AI data-center buildout in Somerset, New York. A June fire in an unfinished building left the Barker Fire Department “kind of blind”: no working alarm or suppression, three dead hydrants, and safety data sheets that reportedly burned in the blaze. The campus sits on a former coal site; TeraWulf owns and operates it on land leased from an entity owned by its own CEO, UK firm Fluidstack will run the center, Google holds warrants for a future ~14% equity stake and has agreed to guarantee Fluidstack’s lease payments, and Anthropic is among the AI customers whose demand the site is meant to serve. Anthropic’s February 2026 ratepayer covenant (covering electricity price impacts and grid costs) includes Lake Mariner, but sources familiar with Anthropic’s thinking said the company lacked detail on verifying clean-energy claims from TeraWulf/Fluidstack. Separately, TeraWulf announced a 20-year, $19 billion direct lease with Anthropic for a Kentucky facility—described as one of Anthropic’s first fully direct site deals, without Fluidstack or a Google backstop. New York’s broader Responsible Data Center Development Act still awaits the governor’s signature; Hochul’s narrower hyperscale moratorium does not reach Lake Mariner’s already-permitted 500 MW buildout. Two months after the fire, firefighters still reported dry hydrants while construction continued.