Colorado
DataCentersExposed tracks 41 AI data centers in Colorado — 7 operating and 6 in the pipeline — across 8 counties, drawing 3.9 GW of reported power demand from 9 tracked corporate operators.
Sources: Methodology, Coverage scorecard
Reporting by Eric Keller · Updated May 29, 2026
Colorado at a glance
The largest footprint in Colorado belongs to Flexential Corp., behind 4 tracked facilities. Equinix, Inc., CenterSquare (formerly Cyxtera), and CoreSite, LLC round out the most active operators in the state. Many of these sites are filed under shell or project names rather than the parent's — our operator column resolves them back to the real corporate parent wherever the chain is documented.
Geographically, the buildout clusters: Weld County leads Colorado with 3 facilities and a composite risk score of 20/100. Arapahoe County and El Paso County follow. Our county risk score weights project exposure (40%), power demand (30%), water draw (15%), and land footprint (15%); the full breakdown is shown on each county page.
Colorado is not done growing. 6 facilities are in the pipeline — proposed, permitted, or under construction — which is where residents still have a say at zoning hearings and in rate cases. Each pending project is a decision about land, water, electricity prices, and tax revenue that hasn't been finalized.
We also surface the accountability trail: 2 state bills mentioning data centers and 6 recent news items are tracked for Colorado below, pulled from LegiScan and GDELT and refreshed automatically. Legislation is linked to the counties and operators it names; news is classified by community sentiment.
2035 Buildout Outlook
Under the model's moderate-growth scenario (5%/yr annual load growth), PNNL's IM3 model sites about 3 standardized 36 MW campuses in Colorado by 2035 — roughly 108 MW of new electricity demand and ~52 M gal/yr of cooling water. Under the higher-growth scenario (15%/yr) that climbs to 18 campuses (648 MW). For scale, we currently track 41 real data centers in Colorado (3.9 GW of reported power).
- Low growth272 MW · ~35 M gal/yr cooling water
- Moderate growth3108 MW · ~52 M gal/yr cooling water
- High growth9324 MW · ~122 M gal/yr cooling water
- Higher growth18648 MW · ~209 M gal/yr cooling water
The model assigns ~50% of these campuses' cooling to evaporative water cooling in Colorado (the rest to mechanical/air cooling), a split it derives from local water stress and wet-bulb temperature.
These are modeled candidate sites, not announced or permitted facilities. PNNL's IM3 model places identical 36 MW unit-campuses at feasible locations under each scenario — it shows where demand could concentrate, never a specific parcel. Figures use a market-gravity weight of 50. How the model works.
Top operators in Colorado
County risk leaderboard
| County | Facilities | Pipeline | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weld County | 3 | 3 | 20 |
| Arapahoe County | 8 | 1 | 12 |
| El Paso County | 5 | 1 | 7 |
| Denver County | 2 | — | 7 |
| Douglas County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Broomfield County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Adams County | 1 | — | 4 |
| Logan County | 1 | 1 | — |
Pipeline & proposals
- Proposed2.0 GWSterling Data CenterGranite Renewables · Logan County
- Proposed1.0 GWGlobalAI Windsor (former Kodak/Carestream)GlobalAI · Weld County County
- Proposed500 MWAligned Weld County Campus (proposed)Aligned Energy Holdings, LP · Weld County
- Proposed50 MWProject TaurusRaeden · El Paso County
- Proposed18 MWGlobal AIOperator unknown · Weld County
- Under construction177 MWQTS Aurora-DenverQTS Realty Trust, LLC · Arapahoe County County