The West’s New Gold Rush - The Data Center Boom

A new gold rush is transforming the American West — not for minerals or oil, but for data. From Phoenix to Colorado’s Front Range, vast data centers are rising across desert and prairie, bringing extraordinary demands for power and water.

According to a new report by Western Resource Advocates, this digital expansion could send electricity demand across the Interior West soaring by more than 55% by 2035, straining utilities and undermining decarbonization goals. In states like Nevada and Colorado, a single hyperscale complex can consume nearly 10% of total state power, forcing utilities to extend the life of fossil fuel plants.

The scale of these facilities — and the secrecy that often surrounds their approval — has sparked growing resistance. In Arizona, community backlash against Project Blue exposed both the opacity of corporate deals and the staggering water demands in drought-prone regions. Some estimates suggest that by 2035, proposed centers in Nevada could consume up to seven billion gallons of water each year — enough to supply nearly 200,000 people.

Regulators warn that the economic burden may ultimately fall on households. With utilities spreading construction and transmission costs across all users, residential customers could see rate increases of 30 to 50 percent, even before factoring in new infrastructure.

To address the imbalance, advocacy groups are calling for tighter transparency rules, limits on non-disclosure agreements, and new pricing models that ensure large energy users pay their own way. Some regions are also exploring cleaner operating models — from Europe’s heat-recycling data centers that warm entire neighborhoods to California’s self-powered, net-zero prototypes.