Kudos to the Colorado Springs city officials for putting in the legwork on what promises to be the state’s largest data center, which will open at an unused microchip manufacturing plant on the city’s northwest side.

The Gazette reported last week California-based Raeden, a Bay Area real estate and tech firm, has been working with the city for more than a year to build the data center on Garden of the Gods Road. The site would be the former 450,000-square-foot Intel plant, around which three smaller buildings at 1565 High Tech Way would be demolished to build needed generators and chiller units. 

Colorado Springs’ choice to bring the development to the Pikes Peak region comes as its Front Range neighbor to the north, Denver, has a city council and mayor who support a moratorium on new data center construction. They cite water use as an acute concern. They seek to impose new regulations to ensure “responsible land, energy, and water use as well as zoning and affordability for ratepayers.”

Those concerns already appear to be addressed in the incoming Springs project.

The 50-megawatt Garden of the Gods facility will draw half the power the same building was rated to draw as a chip plant. And, Raeden officials say, the installation will use a “minimal” amount of water via an “air-cooled closed-loop system.” That’s in contrast to other data centers utilizing evaporating water to keep components cool.

“What that means,” Raeden founder Jason Green said, “is we don’t need any water. So this system is not using any of your water.”

It’s an important feature — and distinction — that could serve arid Colorado well in general if implemented in other such facilities. 

It amounts to a win-win — mitigated the much-debated impact of data centers on power and water use while reaping the rewards. 

Colorado Springs is making a distinct choice to embrace what should be a major tech-sector economic element in this rapidly evolving age of AI. Rather than dispose of the upside of the technology, as Denver seems poised to do, the Springs is looking to thread the needle of welcoming the technology with environmental safeguards.

Colorado must stay ahead of the curve on technology and innovation. AI and quantum computing rely on data centers. Colorado Springs is positioning itself so it won’t be left behind, even as Denver political leaders drag their feet.

And let’s not forget the well-compensated information-technology and construction jobs that accompany such a development.  Green says the data center will support 40 to 100 permanent, high-paying positions when fully built out. 

Presumably, the project won’t flout broader, onerous state environmental mandates, like net-zero-emissions by 2050. The state’s nonsensical climate targets won’t do anything to alter climate change while endangering jobs and shackling energy production — but won’t hinder this project.

Pikes Peak region residents can attend and contribute to an upcoming neighborhood meeting on the project at the Hyatt Place hotel at 503 Garden of the Gods Road from 5:30-7 p.m. on April 7. They’ll be able to get the facts firsthand as to what the development will mean for the community, including the opportunities it will offer.