The Gazette’s Alex Edwards reports on Project Taurus, a proposed AI data center from California-based Raeden that would move into the old Intel chip manufacturing facility near Garden of the Gods Road and Centennial Boulevard in Colorado Springs. The project has drawn big interest, big promises, and a pretty healthy pile of neighborhood anxiety.
Former Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers and retired Gen. John Hyten are making the case that data centers are critical infrastructure for the city’s future, especially with military, space, and AI demands growing. Residents, meanwhile, are asking the obvious questions about water, power, noise, and whether their utility bills are about to get mugged in broad daylight.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Project Taurus would be the largest data center in Colorado Springs, moving into the former Intel facility. Colorado Springs already has several data centers, so this is not some alien spacecraft landing in the neighborhood. It is just bigger, louder in the debate, and wearing the shiny “AI” nametag.
- Residents near the site remember the building’s bitcoin-mining days between 2018 and 2020, when noise complaints piled up and the city’s response was basically governmental jazz hands. Raeden says the old fans that caused noise will be removed and that it is working to reassure neighbors. Good. Reassurance is nice. Actual mitigation is better.
- Power is a major concern. The old chip plant was rated for 100 megawatts, while Raeden says Project Taurus is cleared for a maximum of 50 megawatts. That is still a serious load. When ordinary families are already timing laundry around peak-rate utility windows like they are launching a moon mission, they are right to ask who pays for the new demand.
- Water is the other big freakout, because this is Colorado and not a rainforest with parking lots. Raeden’s Jason Green says the project would need a one-time use of 200,000 gallons and would operate on a closed-loop system that does not evaporate water. If true and enforceable, that matters. If not, cue the usual consultant fog machine.
- Supporters argue the data center could help make Colorado Springs more attractive to military and business users, particularly with Peterson and Schriever Space Force Bases relying on fast data delivery. Suthers says the project could create 60 to 100 high-paying, high-skilled jobs directly, but the bigger value is supporting the tech backbone future employers need. Translation: not a job bonanza by itself, but possibly the plumbing for one.
My Bottom Line
People are right to be concerned. That does not make them anti-growth, anti-technology, or anti-future. It makes them taxpayers with ears, water bills, and electric bills. Funny how that sharpens the mind.
Data centers should be treated like critical infrastructure, because that is what they are becoming. AI, military operations, space systems, business logistics, communications, finance, all of it runs on data. Pretending we can have the digital economy without the buildings that power it is like demanding indoor plumbing but opposing pipes. Very fashionable. Very dumb.
But here is the deal: critical infrastructure needs rules. Data center developers need to build open, honest relationships with the people who have to live next door. No hiding the ball. No glossy town hall slide decks stuffed with corporate lavender and buzzwords. Ban evaporative cooling systems. Require real noise and vibration mitigation. Put large-load tariffs on these facilities and sink that money back into the grid and generation. If they need the power, they can help strengthen the system.
And the residents’ electric bills should hold firm or, better yet, drop because of these investments. That should be the standard. Not “trust us,” not “economic development,” not “the future is coming, peasant.” Build it right, regulate it smartly, protect the neighbors, and make the grid stronger. That is grown-up conservatism. Growth with accountability. Progress without being suckered by another shiny object wearing a tech company hoodie.
Source: Alex Edwards
Share your thoughts...