DENVER — An Artificial Intelligence (AI) Data Center is under construction in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood, and some community members have questions about the impact it could have to their water and power bills, as well as the environment.
CoreSite — developers on the project — said the campus, which includes two other buildings throughout Denver, could use up to 75 megawatts of power. For context, Denver International Airport uses around 45 megawatts of power.
The 180,000-square foot building currently under construction is located in a neighborhood historically known for being under served.
"It’s maybe not the most valuable use of resources," Denver resident Mikey Savage said. "I think they’re an environmental concern."
Savage is in school right now, and has written a paper on resources used to supply data centers.
"They do require an insane amount of energy," Savage said. "They also take up a lot of water to cool the data centers."
A spokesperson for the Denver Community and Planning Development said the site plan was approved in March of this year. CoreSite leaders said the site will bring more jobs to the area, and deliver more than $200 million in tax revenue for the city over 20 years.
It's the long-term impacts that people like Derek McCoy are worried about.
"I don't know that there's transparency or awareness within the community around 'what is this going to do to our energy bills? What is this going to do to our already degraded air quality and water quality within these areas?'" McCoy said.
McCoy is the executive director of Groundworks Denver. He said regulations for centers like this are scarce because AI and its use is so new.
"Is there going to be any sort of supplemental income based off of the earnings of this to support community," McCoy said. "How can we partner with government to be able to make sure that the community's needs are getting met in this process that maybe they didn't have choice, but is there any way that that can be mitigated the damage towards them?"
CoreSite leaders said our digital world and day-to-day needs like emergency services wouldn't function without data centers.
Their goal is to have the newest site available in 2026.
