Cheyenne's Big Bet on AI: A Power Play with a Catch

Cheyenne, Wyoming, is set to become a major player in the AI world. A new AI data center is coming to town. It will use a lot of power. In fact, it will use more electricity than all the homes in Wyoming combined. That's a huge amount of energy. Why Cheyenne? The city has cool weather and cheap electricity. Wyoming is known for producing a lot of energy. It exports most of what it makes. This new data center will be a big deal. It could start at 1. 8 gigawatts. That's enough to power 1. 8 million homes. But Wyoming only has about 590, 000 people. The data center is a joint project. Tallgrass and Crusoe are behind it. They plan to use both gas and renewable energy. This is good news for Wyoming's gas industry. Governor Mark Gordon is excited about it. He sees it as a boost for the state. But there's a catch. Data centers use a lot of energy. This can be bad for the climate. Experts say using renewable energy can help. But it might still drive up electricity bills. The data center will be built south of Cheyenne. It's near the Colorado state line. Construction could start soon. The city's mayor is optimistic. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is also looking for sites. They have a project called Stargate. But they won't say if Cheyenne is part of it. OpenAI is already building a big data center in Texas. They plan to expand even more. Wyoming is not on OpenAI's list of states for new data centers. But things can change quickly. The AI world is growing fast. Cheyenne's new data center could be a game-changer. It's a big bet on the future.