Willcox, Arizona: SpaceX Unveils 6 Gigawatt Data Center Plan in Cochise County

SpaceX confirmed at a packed community meeting on Wednesday that it is the company behind a proposed 747 acre artificial intelligence data center campus near Willcox, in rural Cochise County about 80 miles east of Tucson. Nearly 300 people filled the Cochise Elementary School auditorium on November 4 to hear the plan, and many of them shouted questions and objections at the presenters.

The campus is proposed on rural land along U.S. Highway 191 near the unincorporated community of Cochise, about 13 miles outside Willcox and next to the Apache Generating Station. The application was filed on October 30 under the name Tombstone Resources LLC. Company representatives told residents they used that name because putting SpaceX on the filing draws attention from outside the county.

A campus measured in gigawatts

The application describes up to nine data center computing buildings with battery storage. At full build out the campus would use up to 6 gigawatts of electricity, which would make it the biggest data center in Arizona and one of the biggest proposed in the country. The Arizona Republic calculated that the demand is about 2.5 times the power used by all data centers in Maricopa County combined.

Power would come through the Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative and the Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, and the application says the project would invest $3.6 billion in grid upgrades and could take the Apache Generating Station's capacity from about 1 gigawatt to more than 6 gigawatts. Riley Trettle, SpaceX's head of energy and supercomputers, told the meeting the project would create about 1,000 permanent jobs, lower residents' electricity bills and cut property taxes by 20 percent. The application also projects a one time $250 million sales tax benefit to the county and $35 million to $103 million in sales tax revenue.

Water, power and unanswered questions

Water is the sharpest local concern in a valley where groundwater has been drawn down by large dairy farms. The application says the campus would be dry cooled and would pump no groundwater for industrial use. An existing well would supply up to 10 acre feet of water a year for drinking water, maintenance and cleaning. Cochise County has noted that the figures in the application come from the applicant and have not been independently verified.

The permit does not estimate how much water power generation for a fully built 6 gigawatt campus would use. Any rate increases for the two cooperatives would also need approval from the Arizona Corporation Commission. A petition asking the county to deny the permit had gathered about 2,400 signatures before the meeting, and Rural Arizona Engagement helped residents organize against the plan. Some residents spoke in favor, pointing to construction work and year round jobs. Jason Bowling, chief executive of the Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative, said public sentiment is divided and residents need the facts before they judge the project.

What happens next

The land is zoned rural, so the project needs a special use authorization from the county. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on the application on December 9 in Bisbee. The commission's decision is final unless it is appealed to the Board of Supervisors. The Gila Herald reported that construction is slated to begin right away if the authorization is approved.