Google will spend $17 billion to build its first data center in Wyoming, a project announced Thursday for Laramie County. The announcement came just two days after voters in 40 of 41 local US ballot measures backed restrictions on data center projects.

The tech giant disclosed the project in a blog post, naming Tallgrass Energy, Black Hills Energy, American Electric Power (AEP) and Related Digital as partners. Google said it will pay for all the electricity the campus consumes, as well as the cost of any power grid upgrades needed to support it. US lawmakers have repeatedly called on big technology companies to shoulder such data center costs themselves.

Fuel cells instead of turbines

The facility will run on a 702-megawatt fuel cell system arranged through AEP and built in the US by Bloom Energy. Unlike turbines, which burn natural gas to produce electricity, fuel cells rely on a chemical reaction to generate power.

AEP said in October that it would invest about $4 billion in the project under a 20-year agreement to supply electricity to Google. The facility is reportedly expected to be fully operational by the end of 2028.

Carbon emissions from the plant will be captured and buried underground at Tallgrass Energy's nearby Eastern Wyoming Sequestration Hub. Google stated in its blog post that the facility will capture most of the emissions, though exact figures were not provided. The deal brings Google's total planned carbon capture capacity to nearly 1 gigawatt, building on a similar agreement the company signed for a gas project in Illinois in October 2025.

Air cooling after Cheyenne water scare

The site will use air cooling rather than water to avoid placing additional strain on local supplies. Water use has become a concern in Cheyenne: The Next Web reported that the city halted some data center water discharges in July after a Meta contractor released a rare bacterium into its wastewater system.

Black Hills Energy is also supplying power to the site. The utility said on October 6 that it had signed definitive agreements, effective September 30, to serve the project, and plans to spend $1.8 billion from 2027 to 2029 on 564 MW of natural gas generation. According to Quartz, Black Hills expects service to begin in late 2027, reach peak load in 2030, and generate about $150 million in net income that year.

Google expects the project to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes to Laramie County and School District 1. The development has nonetheless raised concerns among local residents: more than 200 people attended a meeting in downtown Cheyenne to discuss the impact of data center growth on the city, according to Quartz.

To address those concerns, Google, its partners and Bloom Energy plan to establish a Community Council through which residents can raise issues and discuss them directly with the companies.

Announcement timing stands out against political backdrop

The timing is notable. Just two days before the announcement, voters supported restrictions on data center projects in 40 of 41 local referendums, according to Ballotpedia figures. In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa won the governor's race after pledging to halt data center construction, while Democratic candidates in Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania also campaigned on tighter rules for data centers.

Wyoming, by contrast, is a Republican stronghold: Trump won more than 70% of the state's vote in 2024. The contrast shows how much local politics can shape where large-scale data center projects are able to move forward.