$16B Oracle-OpenAI Stargate Data Center in Saline Township Needs 10 Low Voltage Systems

The single largest economic investment in Michigan history is now a live construction site — and it runs on low voltage. Related Digital’s “The Barn,” a $16 billion Oracle-OpenAI Stargate AI data center campus in Saline Township, broke ground June 1, 2026, and Signal’s data shows it will require ten distinct low voltage systems with an estimated $640 million in low voltage and structured infrastructure work.

Project Overview

Project data shows The Barn is a gigawatt-scale, AI-optimized data center campus rising on 250 acres off Michigan Avenue in Saline Township, roughly ten miles southwest of Ann Arbor in Washtenaw County. Trade reporting from Engineering News-Record describes three single-story data halls of approximately 550,000 square feet each, engineered as part of the Stargate compute buildout for Oracle and OpenAI.

• Project value: $16 billion — the largest capital project in Michigan history
• Location: Michigan Avenue, Saline Township, MI (Washtenaw County)
• Scale: 250 developed acres of a 1,000+ acre site; three ~550,000 sq ft data halls; 1 GW+ critical capacity
• Workforce: 2,500+ union construction jobs, 450+ permanent on-site roles
• Timeline: Groundbreaking June 1, 2026; multi-year phased buildout
• Cooling: Closed-loop, air-cooled design limiting water draw to that of a typical office building

The Signal record for this project carries an LV opportunity score of 10 out of 10 — the ceiling — driven by the sheer density of mission-critical systems a hyperscale AI campus demands.

Key Players

This is a rare Tier 1 project where the full delivery stack is already public. Low voltage contractors reading this should note who is holding the prime relationships:

Role	Company	Notes
Developer	Related Digital	Campus developer and construction lead
General Contractor	Walbridge	Detroit-based; largest project in its 110-year history
Tenants	Oracle & OpenAI	Stargate AI compute end-users
Real Estate / Capital	Blackstone Real Estate, PIMCO	Equity and financing partners
Power	DTE Energy	Utility interconnection partner
Electrical Trades	Motor City Electric, Shaw / E-J Electric, Superior Electric Great Lakes, Triangle Electric	Union electrical contractors on site

For LV specialists, the practical takeaway is that the structured cabling, fiber, and physical-security scopes will flow through the electrical primes and Walbridge’s trade package — the named electrical contractors above are the relationships worth pursuing for teaming and sub-tier work.

Low Voltage Systems Breakdown

A hyperscale AI data center is one of the most low-voltage-intensive structures built today. Signal identifies ten systems in scope on The Barn:

System	Scope	Complexity
Fiber Backbone	Campus and inter-building single-mode fiber; spine-leaf interconnect	Very High
Structured Cabling	High-density copper and fiber to compute, storage, and network rows	Very High
Outside Plant (OSP)	Duct bank, conduit, and campus fiber between halls and the meet-me room	High
Networking	Passive infrastructure for AI fabric and management networks	Very High
Access Control	Multi-layer perimeter, mantrap, and cage-level credentialing	High
CCTV / Video Surveillance	Full-coverage IP video, analytics, and retention	High
Fire Alarm & Detection	VESDA aspirating detection, clean-agent interface, mass notification	Very High
BMS / Building Controls	Cooling, power, and environmental monitoring integration	Very High
DAS	In-building cellular and public-safety radio coverage	Medium
Grounding & Bonding	Signal reference grid, lightning protection, equipment bonding	High

Estimated Low Voltage Value

Signal’s enrichment pipeline puts the low voltage and structured infrastructure opportunity at approximately $640 million — roughly 4% of the $16 billion campus value, a benchmark consistent with hyperscale data center construction where mission-critical cabling, physical security, and controls carry an outsized share of the technology budget.

That figure is not a single award. It represents the aggregate LV scope across three data halls, the meet-me room, security operations, and campus outside plant — work that will be packaged, bid, and delivered in phases over the multi-year buildout. For contractors, the takeaway is scale: even a single-system, single-building package on The Barn can exceed the total value of a typical commercial project.

Skills & Certifications

Winning work on a hyperscale AI campus requires credentials that go well beyond standard commercial LV. Expect owners and primes to require:

• BICSI RCDD and DCDC (Data Center Design Consultant) — the baseline for mission-critical cabling design
• BICSI INSTC / INSTF and FOA CFOT — certified fiber installation and termination at scale
• NICET Fire Alarm Level II+ with VESDA / aspirating detection and clean-agent experience
• Manufacturer certifications for access control and IP video (Genetec, Lenel, Software House, Axis)
• IEEE / BICSI grounding and bonding competency for signal reference grids and lightning protection
• OT / BMS integration and IEC 62443 awareness for controls network cybersecurity
• Union affiliation — this is a project-labor-agreement job with a union electrical workforce

Market Signal

The Barn is the clearest signal yet that the AI data center wave has fully reached the Midwest. Michigan just landed the largest construction project in its history, and it is one of a national cluster Signal is now tracking — from Meta’s gigawatt campuses in Indiana and Louisiana to Vantage in Wisconsin and DataBank south of Dallas. Every one of these carries a perfect 10 LV opportunity score and the same ten-system profile.

For low voltage contractors, this is a structural shift. AI infrastructure is concentrating enormous, cabling-dense, security-heavy scopes into a handful of megasites — and the firms that build data center credentials now will be positioned for a decade of work. Saline Township is a fresh market with a $640M LV opportunity that did not exist eighteen months ago.

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