As Colorado Springs residents continue to grapple with a California company’s proposal to build an artificial intelligence data center on the city’s northwest side, those who live nearby again questioned at a second community meeting why it has to be in their neighborhood.

The meeting on Thursday night drew more than 500 residents, eliciting shouts and jeers as Raeden’s co-founder and president, Jason Green, attempted to address the community’s concerns with Project Taurus. He was joined by city planning department leadership and Colorado Springs Utilities staff.

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.

Many people in the Marriott at 5580 Tech Center Drive were not impressed by the case he presented. Mentions of the use of the building as an asset for the military drew jeers and protests from the crowd, some of whom explicitly shouted their opposition to the war with Iran. One attendee, who identified herself as a veteran, said being tied to the military mission makes it the priority, not residents.

Raeden has not publicly named its customer, citing non-disclosure agreements. In the past several weeks, it has started to highlight its facility as a resource for the military. A first community meeting in early April drew a capacity 200 people and many more were turned away by the fire marshal.

In addition to many previously covered concerns, such as water and power use and noise generated by the proposed data center, residents wanted to know more about how Raeden would build out its infrastructure.

“Let’s start with the construction jobs. So these are union jobs on the construction side; we only use union labor,” said Green. “There are 125 to 150 union electricians that are local to this region that are ready to work on that project.”

Other jobs, such as drywall installers and pipe fitters, will also be local, Green said.

The built-out data center will support between 80 and 100 high-paying jobs, according to Green and Raeden team members. Former Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers has also said the data center will be needed to prime the economy for future investment from the military and the private sector as the use of and need for AI increases.

Some in the crowd didn’t buy that.

Some residents of the Chelsea Glen neighborhood, like Jon Tulien, said they understand the need for AI and data centers.

“Is this the right location, is this the right place to put a data center? I’m going to say no,” said Tulien, who lives across Sinton Trail from the site. “I fully understand the impact AI is having and this revolution that is going through the country … but there’s a right place to put them.”

Tulien pointed to the Peak Innovation Park near the Colorado Springs Airport. The park is already home to several aerospace businesses, such as the Aerospace Corporation and Northrop Grumman. Swire Coca-Cola announced in December that it would build a bottling facility there.

At the Colorado State Capitol, the legislature recently killed two data-center-related bills. One, SB 26-102, would have required operators of new large facilities to secure 100% annual renewable energy matching by 2031, cover full infrastructure costs through long-term contracts, and conduct community impact analyses, The Gazette previously reported.

Another, HB 26-1030, sought to draw investment through sales-tax exemptions while requiring operators to assume the full cost of service, meet job-creation and wage standards, and use water-efficient cooling technology.

Local business leaders like Seth Harvey, the CEO of Bluestaq, said that a data center is one of the best uses of the existing building he can think of.

“If we were to put a company the size of Intel back in that building, it would create way more traffic,” he said. “And they would use more water. There’s a reason that building has an allocation of a million gallons per day.”

A chip fab, on average, will use 10 million gallons per day, according to the World Economic Forum. Raeden’s data center would have a one-time use of 200,000 gallons in a closed-loop system, The Gazette reported previously.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited from its original publication for context and clarity.