Was TeraWulf’s “Independent Review” Really Independent?

Written By No Data Center FLX .

To read the independent assessment discussed in this post, see here.

On 10/29 at TeraWulf’s Open House, it was announced that TeraWulf was funding an independent assessment of their AI data center plans. This assessment would be performed by Sarah Kreps, a local professor, and include a team of whoever she hired.

We have concerns with this independent assessment in regards to conflicts of interest and gaps in expertise, which we expand upon below.

Quick Facts

Claim: Sarah Kreps is an unbiased voice of reason

Truth:

  • Dr. Kreps is the Director of Cornell Tech Policy Institute, which is partnered with TeraWulf on their data center.

  • Kreps became an early academic collaborator with Open AI in 2016.

  • Kreps has publicly supported the progression of AI despite risks, in favor of economic growth.

  • In 2024, Kreps published a study on the best surveillance practices for governments to engage in, which was partially funded by Israel National Cyber Directorate. This organization is actively funding other surveillance-related research, including AI surveillance.

Claim: Kreps and her team are qualified to review TeraWulf’s project

Truth:

  • The independent team lacks recent experience with environmental research.

  • The team lacks perspectives from local ecologists and local economists (while lacking micro-economic experience of assessing local economies, Kreps has previously published research related to macro-economics of war and foreign governments).

Conflicts of Interest

TeraWulf and Cornell TPI

We don’t believe that this review was as independent as TeraWulf claims. TeraWulf CEO Paul Prager stated he had never met Sarah Kreps when announcing they hired her to conduct the independent review of their site plans for the Lansing AI data center. While that may be the case, it appears that TeraWulf hired Dr. Kreps after they already partnered with Cornell Tech Policy Institute.

At their Open House on 10/7, TeraWulf stated they were partnering with Cornell TPI. They announced this independent study by Dr. Kreps, Director of Cornell Tech Policy Institute, at their 10/29 Open House.

Kreps, AI, and Bitcoin

Kreps' publications related to AI lean favorable. In an article she published, she stated that “While AI development presents risks, rushing to legislate is ill-advised” as “the potential for overregulation threatens both U.S. economic innovation and national security leadership—particularly in the context of global competition with China”. Kreps is publicly in favor of delaying AI regulation in favor of economic growth, which aligns well with TeraWulf’s urgency to build this data center.

Sarah Kreps is a Senior Fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. TeraWulf was a sponsor of the Bitcoin Policy Institute’s 2025 Summit, and Michael Enwright, Senior Vice President of TeraWulf, was a speaker at the summit. TeraWulf also currently does Bitcoin mining at their Somerset, NY facility, though they have said verbally that they will be moving away from bitcoin mining.

About the Independent Assessment Team

Sarah Kreps

While Kreps has degrees in Environmental Science and related topics, a huge selling point of TeraWulf regarding the validity of this review, her professional experience does not include any environmental work in the past two decades.

Her career has been focused on topics such as foreign policy, international politics, and drones since 1999, when she joined the Air Force as an Acquisition and Procurement Officer for Advanced Surveillance Technology. She graduated from her PhD in “Government. Fields: Intl. relations, security studies” in 2007. Her publications since then mainly focus on subjects such as war, drones, and international law.

Christopher Earles

Earles is the second member of the team that assessed the impact of this data center, hired by Dr. Kreps to work with her. Earles is also a member of Cornell Tech Policy Institute and his research specializes in large-scale computational modeling. His recent publications include researching text-trained large language models, lines of thought in LLMs, and how LLMs learn new concepts, among other things.

This Team is Not the Best Fit

We do not feel that this team is the right choice for an unbiased assessment of the project. We find their professional focuses in foreign policy and large-scale computational modeling, as well as their affiliation with Cornell Tech Policy Insitute, to be conflicts of interest in providing the community with an impartial perspective.

Kreps and Earles have already published their own biases in favor of AI in their research and opinion pieces online. We feel that an unbiased assessment would include all perspectives on AI and data centers, as well as other fields including micro-economics, ecology, infrastructure, agriculture, engineering, tourism, and more. While some of these perpectives are well-covered in the assessment, we find this team’s biases and gaps in expertise to be concerning.

TeraWulf’s Plans Can Change

Regardless of the conclusions drawn from this assessment, the findings could become obselete if TeraWulf changes their plans. TeraWulf’s site plan has not been reviewed or approved yet.

TeraWulf can also apply for changes to their data center after it’s already been built. Changes such as re-applying for the water withdrawal and discharge permits that Cayuga Operating Company has promised to surrender, and reinstating the open-loop cooling system are possibilities. As far as we can tell, so far there’s nothing that is legally binding TeraWulf to their promises to the community.

We encourage you to read the assessment of the data center with these concerns in mind. The full assessment can be seen here. We have not heard of any news regarding site plan reviews for the project, but will continue to post updates as we hear them. Stay informed and stay tuned.

Sources

No Data Center FLX .
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