County commissioners in Laramie County, Wyoming, have unanimously approved two interconnected projects near Terry Ranch Road south of Cheyenne: Project Jade, an AI data center campus proposed by Crusoe Energy Systems, and the BFC Power and Cheyenne Power Hub, a gas-fired generation facility from Tallgrass that puts 2.7 gigawatts of natural gas capacity on the site, Oil City News reports.
Raymon Williams, project director for Tallgrass, told the board the energy infrastructure alone represents a $7 billion investment, and put total capital expenditure for the campus at more than $50 billion. He characterized the development as a "bring your own power" model designed to be "very self-sufficient for our industrial facility", generating electricity on site, an arrangement he said would lessen the impact on existing energy and other utilities in the area.
Water was the sharpest point of contention at the hearing. The developers plan to draw industrial water from wells drilled into the deep Lance Formation aquifer, and Matt Field, chief real estate officer for Crusoe, said the data centers would use a closed-loop cooling system to reduce ongoing water consumption. Field and Williams both said the project is designed to avoid competing with residential drinking water sources or with retail electric rates. Neither executive attached numbers to projected water draw at the hearing, which is the figure that would let an engineer test the closed-loop claim.
Neighbors pushed back anyway. Thomas White, who lives near Terry Ranch Road, questioned what happens if deep drilling contaminates the aquifer his household water comes from, telling the board: "I worry about the groundwater." Michelle Jessica, a nearby ranch resident, put the cost plainly. "I have looked at pasture and cows for my entire life. To see this going in is tough," Jessica said.
State officials lined up behind the project. Drew Perkins, chief of staff to Gov. Mark Gordon, framed the approval as a national security matter and described the global pursuit of computing power as the "arms race of our generation." Gunnar Malm, who chairs the county board, compared the county's role to its history in nuclear deterrence.
Construction is expected to employ as many as 5,000 workers at its peak, and the developers aim to energize the first buildings by the second quarter of 2027. Contract terms, tenant commitments, and the phasing of the 2.7 gigawatts were not part of the public presentation, so the schedule risk sits behind those numbers rather than in them.
For siting teams, the approval is a data point showing that a self-powered campus with closed-loop cooling can clear a county permitting vote even against organized objections over water and land use. The second-quarter 2027 energization target now gives buyers and engineers a concrete date against which to judge whether bring-your-own-power projects actually move faster from approval to operation.
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