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Globeville Elyria-Swansea advocates worry about impacts of new data center

This week on Real Talk with Micah Smith, we're taking a deep dive into the controversy surrounding a new CoreSite colocation data center in the Globeville Elyria-Swansea communities.
Data centers power the technology we use every day, but new projects popping up around Denver are raising concerns. On this episode of Real Talk with Micah Smith, we break down what data centers are, the different types that exist and why companies build them. Plus, Micah sits down with a community leader in the Globeville Elyria Swansea neighborhood about the environmental and physical footprint of a new data center under construction. Then, she takes those concerns to a representative from the company behind the project to ask about its mission and plans for the area. And, hear from Denver city leaders about why they’re considering a pause on new data center developments.
Real Talk with Micah Smith, Episode 114: Data centers
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DENVER - Tech companies are building more and more data centers across the country, including here in Colorado. But the pushback against them is growing as well.      

This week on Real Talk with Micah Smith, we're taking a deep dive into the controversy surrounding a new CoreSite colocation data center in the Globeville Elyria-Swansea communities.

▶️ Watch this week's episode in the video player below

Real Talk with Micah Smith, Episode 114: Data centers

According to IBM, a data center is a physical room, building or facility that houses information technology infrastructure for running and delivering applications and services.

There are several different kinds of data centers with some of the most popular being used to support the workload of artificial intelligence.

According to datacentermap.com, Colorado has 56 data centers with the majority located in Denver.

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The Follow Up

Data center developer skips out on town hall amid Globeville community concerns

Maggie Bryan

Denver is home to two colocation data centers. Colocation data centers are owned by a company that provides infrastructure for the building, security, and manages firewalls and servers.

Globeville Elyria-Swansea (GES) community advocates have expressed concerns about the environmental impact of the new center.

“One of the things that becomes glaringly obvious is the amount of water, the amount power that it'll use … We’re in a part of town where the grid has been depleted for a long time,” Alfonso Espino, a community organizer with the GES Coalition, said.

Espino said GES is already dealing with environmental and infrastructure issues.

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State

Proposed Colorado bill aims to balance data center growth with climate goals

Allie Jennerjahn

CoreSite said this would be their third data center in the city and the site was chosen because of how the property is zoned.

“This property was formerly a concrete plant, zoned heavy industrial. So therefore, zoned for data center development,” Megan Ruszkowski, CoreSite’s vice president of marketing and sales development, said.

You can watch the full episode of Real Talk with Micah Smith on data centers Sunday at 5:30 p.m. and find full episodes here.

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