Elected officials and community residents from across Yuma County heard presentations on data centers Friday morning at a meeting organized by the Greater Yuma Economic Development Corp., or GYEDC.
The meeting was initially not open to the general public but was opened as some residents had gathered to protest against data centers.
A data center is a physical facility that organizations use to house their critical applications and data. An AI data center is specifically designed to support the demanding computational requirements of artificial intelligence workloads.
Data center supporters say they bring jobs and can be a big driver of local revenue for cities and counties. Opponents, however, say data centers have high environmental costs as they tend to use high amounts of energy and water.
Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls, other local elected officials and Greg LeVann, GYEDC’s president and CEO, have said there are no current plans coming before any local government agencies at this time. LeVann did say companies are interested in building data centers across Arizona and specifically in Yuma County because of proposed natural gas projects.
“We do have multiple projects that have had public meetings here in Yuma proposing building natural gas pipelines," he said. "Those are public... and that’s why data centers right now are very interested in Yuma County.”
LeVann said those natural gas projects would bring alternative energy sources to the area.
Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines said he would recommend that any data center here would use a model that wouldn’t impact water for agricultural use.
Meeting attendees heard presentations from a representative with Arizona Public Service, or APS, and the economic development manager from the City of El Mirage in Maricopa County where they have data centers.
Public comments at the meeting were directed through a QR code.
Earlier this past week, Yuma Mayor Nicholls, city councilmembers and city staff gathered in San Luis for a retreat. One of the topics they discussed was data centers.
Nicholls told KAWC said he’s listening to all sides at this early point in discussions about data centers in Yuma.
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Stay tuned to KAWC to hear from residents against data centers and for any future updates on discussions about data centers in Yuma County.
