Data Center, AI Companies Pay to Upgrade Colorado City's Water System
Cipher Digital, Fluidstack, and Anthropic are partnering with Colorado City officials to launch a nonprofit dedicated to repairing the town's water system. This initiative coincides with the activation of a 300-megawatt high-performance computing campus outside city limits, with the companies clarifying the facility uses non-potable water and does not draw from municipal drinking sources. The collaboration addresses chronic water outages and aims to position data centers as community partners rather than resource drains.
Cipher Digital, Fluidstack, and Anthropic announced the formation of the Colorado City Infrastructure Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, in partnership with Colorado City officials. The fund is dedicated to repairing the town's aging and frequently failing water system, an issue highlighted by a recent power outage that caused widespread water loss.
This announcement occurs as Cipher Digital's 300-megawatt Barber Lake high-performance computing (HPC) campus, located just outside Colorado City in Mitchell County, begins delivering capacity. Fluidstack is the tenant, with Google backing the lease, and Anthropic utilizing the AI compute resources. Cipher Digital has stated the facility uses on-site non-potable water for cooling and does not impact municipal drinking water sources or residential utility bills, a claim echoed by Mayor Ruben Hurt.
The article also mentions Cipher Digital's plans for a 1,000-megawatt Colchis HPC campus nearby, which could be affected by a governor's temporary halt and audit of statewide data center projects. Additionally, it references San Angelo's existing city ordinance imposing closed-loop cooling and tight potable-water limits for data centers, demonstrating a regional trend towards water conservation for these facilities. The companies aim to establish a model where data centers contribute positively to community infrastructure.