Weeks after a packed community meeting concerning a proposed AI data center off Garden of the Gods Road, former city and national leaders are speaking out on its merits, citing its potential to prime the economy for explosive growth.

Former Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers has said data centers like Project Taurus are a critical tool the city must have to remain relevant as a national military and business hub. But some residents in the city are still wary of the impact on water use, power and the noise they may generate.

As the military and commercial need for AI increases, Project Taurus may, as a significant piece of tech infrastructure, prime the city’s economy for explosive growth, according to Suthers, and retired Gen. John Hyten, the chairman of the board of the Space Foundation.

Suthers now works at Denver-based legal firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck and said he’s agreed to take the company planning Taurus as a client.

Colorado Springs is already home to several data centers, though California-based Raeden and its Project Taurus will be the largest in the city, according to publicly available information. The proposed data center is planned for the former Intel chip-manufacturing facility located just southwest of the intersection between Garden of the Gods Road and Centennial Boulevard.

A second community meeting is scheduled for Thursday 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Marriott at 5580 Tech Center Drive.

Tom Conklin lives in Pleasant Valley, about 4 miles south of the proposed data center. He attended the first meeting last month but was turned away because more people showed up than the conference room could accommodate.

Rather than get angry, Conklin was proud of his fellow citizens for showing up. 

“I thought that it was good to be there, because having a turnout like that shows that it is an important issue. Regardless of stance, it’s an important issue to our city. I think that it sent the message that this is important, regardless of if I’m in the room hearing what they have to say or not.” 

Discussions about data centers are present in many Front Range communities. Denver has proposed a moratorium on data center development, while the state legislature is mulling a pair of bills on the issue. Towns like Walsenburg, about 95 miles south of Colorado Springs, also have grappled with the potential boons and shortfalls.

Walsenburg leaders were caught off-guard by a proposal from Utah-based BlueSky AI, which many learned of during Gazette reporting detailing a proposed center. While the town of just over 3,000 is open, even eager, for new development, the mayor didn’t think a data center would bring enough jobs or safeguard the town’s water rights.

In Denver, officials have said a moratorium would give staff a chance to review data center-specific regulations targeting “responsible land, energy, and water use as well as zoning and affordability for ratepayers.” 

Some residents of the Chelsea Glenn area in Colorado Springs, who would live with the Raeden data center in their backyard, are concerned by potential noise.

Many clearly remember when the structure was a bitcoin-mining facility. At the community meeting several weeks ago, they recalled persistent noise that emanated from the building between 2018 and 2020. They remember the numerous noise complaints sent to the city and its limited response — the city installed some noise-resistant walls — as the building technically did not violate noise ordinances.

Ultimately, the company behind the cryptocurrency operation, 3G Ventures, declared bankruptcy in 2020.  

Other residents are concerned about energy use. As a chip plant0, the facility was rated to take 100 megawatts of power. Jason Green, co-founder and president of Raeden, said Project Taurus is cleared to use a maximum of 50 megawatts. Other data centers in town use less, with the next largest, run by Utah-based NOVVA, offering customers 40 megawatts, according to the company’s webpage.

Another facility near Ute Valley Park and run by QTS uses 14-plus megawatts of power, according to the website.

This worries Marissa Krayne, who has lived in Colorado Springs for eight years. In that time, she’s seen her utility bills rise, even after trying to adapt to Colorado Springs Utilities’ new “energy-wise” rates. The new rules charge a higher rate during “peak” hours between 5 and 9 p.m., when most people are at home.  

“We’re trying to cut down as much as possible, because they’re increasing prices during that time,” she said. ““I’ve lived here for eight years, and my utilities have definitely increased … “… Already we’re struggling with utility prices as an average consumer.”  

Water use is often cited as another concern. A large AI data center could use as much as 5 million gallons of water per day, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. This makes them a no-go for many who call the water-parched West home. However, Green’s Project Taurus will only require a one-time use of 200,000 gallons, a fraction of the daily use it could have tapped as a chip facility, he said. 

Project Taurus will use a closed-loop system, which means the water is never exposed to air and thus will never evaporate, Green added. It is similar to a water-cooled home computer, but on a larger scale. 

“You keep your water, use it for whatever you want, because we don’t need it,” he said.  

Leaks, while technically possible, would indicate a higher priority and catastrophic failure somewhere else in the system, Green said.  

“If they leak, the data center doesn’t work,” he said. “The biggest, biggest concern of any data center at this scale is called thermal runaway. … The goal for us is to never have any type of mechanical disruption, cooling disruption. If we have a leak, it’s all bad.” 

The computers inside data centers may consistently work at close to 100%. At the scale planned for data centers, a break in the water lines could cause temperatures to spike to unsafe levels, Green said.

The building has a ring of peripheral offices connected by a wide hallway that appears as a moat around a castle. Then, another wall, several feet thick, surrounds the main floor of the data center.

Data centers are not new; they’ve been around for decades before the artificial intelligence craze. Hewlett-Packard received approval to build a large data center off Rockrimmon Boulevard near Ute Valley Park in 2009.

The HP facility, now operated by QTS, is among several data centers throughout the city, though Raeden’s will be the largest. A map maintained by Baxtel, a data center marketplace company, shows more than 80 operational or planned data centers in the state. Within Colorado Springs and surrounding area, there are seven.  

Data centers for years have been seen as a boon for the city. Media coverage from 2012 show city officials had high hopes for a Walmart data center being built on the city’s north side. At the time, they estimated it would add $488 million to the economy over 15 years after wooing it to the city with $4.5 million in sales and business personal property tax rebates, The Gazette reported. The Raeden project is not seeking any incentives, according to staff at the Colorado Springs Chamber & Economic Development Corp.

Another was a mega-investment whose outcome has yet to be realized: an $800 million campus where five to 10 corporate data centers totaling 800,000 square feet would employ 400 to 600 people. However, it currently appears that little progress has been made on the 61-acre project, roughly east of The Broadmoor World Arena across Interstate 25. The project, under the auspices of German software giant SAP, was estimated to be completed in 2036, according to the Urban Renewal Authority.

The site was formerly a nine-hole golf course near the El Pomar Youth Sports Park, and will eventually contribute “8 acres of open space and riparian environment to the City of Colorado Springs for park and trail uses,” according to the URA.

After SAP bought the land that will become the major data center campus, Vince Colarelli, the founder of Colarelli Construction, said “It’s an affirmation of what we have believed all along about Colorado Springs being a premier location for data center development.”

By comparison, the Raeden site is about 22 acres.

 

For Colorado Springs, embracing data centers might be a critical aspect of securing future investment from both business and the military, according to Suthers.

“It’s become very apparent to me that artificial intelligence is our future and there’s no artificial intelligence without data centers. You have to be careful where you’re putting them in terms of utility availability.”  

Even as Colorado Springs negotiates a future without Space Command, the military’s joint command for anything and everything that flies into space, having the infrastructure ready for future business and military uses will be critical.  

“Why you need data centers is you’re not otherwise going to get the employers that have lots of jobs,” Suthers said. “These companies who are going to be in Colorado Springs, who want to be in Colorado Springs … they’ve got to have data centers, and that’s where the jobs come in.”

Amid Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. campaign against Iran, the military has been using AI to “sift through vast amounts of data” and ultimately make “smarter decisions faster than the enemy,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command.  

While some economic development projects strive to create hundreds of new jobs, Project Taurus won’t be a direct source for big employment gains. It may add 60 to 100 high-paying, high-skilled jobs, Suthers said.  

“But the big economic benefit is it supports the critical technological infrastructure in Colorado Springs,” Suthers said. “This data center will support critical services required by all five military bases.”  

More data centers may make the city more attractive to businesses, as well, he said, which could spark job growth. 

There are also national security considerations, Hyten said, and data centers will be critical to local military operations, especially Peterson and Schriever Space Force Bases, which rely on high-speed data delivery.

As China positions itself as a world power, the need for more satellites of all types is increasing, military officials say. As a result, the Space Force’s budget is set to double, or even triple, under President Donald Trump’s latest $1.5 trillion spending proposal.   

Commercial users including SpaceX and Amazon have proposed mega-constellations for Starlink and Leo, their respective satellite-based internet services.  

More satellites mean more data, according to Hyten. He is currently the chairman of the board for the Space Foundation, a space advocacy nonprofit based in Colorado Springs. Both the military and the private sector will need AI-powered and regular data centers to analyze the information, all of which flows through Colorado, Hyten said. 

“I want Colorado to continue to be the centerpiece for space operations for our United States military. I believe that we ought to do it responsibly and right, but we need that capability in Colorado.” 

Still, some residents remain worried. James Vanhoy of Colorado Springs said he does not want to see runaway development of data centers. He specifically points to places like Virginia, called the data center capital of the U.S., where electricity rates have skyrocketed as data center development picks up, according to various local media reports.

“There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of controls or regulations relative to these technology implementations,” Vanhoy said. 

Some Colorado legislators agree and introduced a bill that, among other things, requires large-load data centers to “generate, purchase, or otherwise acquire” 100% of their power needs from renewable sources. Another bill seeks to offer economic incentives for data centers as Colorado tries to position itself as a tech hub. 

But going slower and steady is key, Krayne said.

“Anything (to) kind of just put the brakes on for a second and say, ‘Well, hang on, let’s take a good look at how this is going to impact everybody, what resources it’s going to use, what protections we need to have in place.’ And then once we have those guidelines set up, then we can move forward.”