Why developers come here
Wyoming’s data center story is really a Cheyenne story. The city sits where the I-80 fiber corridor meets the I-25 corridor, an hour north of Denver, at 6,000 feet with cool, dry air that cuts cooling costs. Microsoft has three Cheyenne campuses, each certified for the state exemption; Meta was certified in October 2022; Related Digital is building a $1.2 billion, 115-acre campus for CoreWeave in the Cheyenne Business Parkway. By the state’s count there are somewhere between 24 and 31 data centers in Wyoming, with 27 in the Cheyenne area, up from about four when the sales tax exemption passed in 2010.
The 2025-2026 wave is different in scale. Google’s Project Tembo (formerly Project Jade) south of Cheyenne is permitted for 2.7 GW with natural gas generation built alongside it, and Microsoft annexed 3,460 acres into the city in July 2026 for expansion it says will play out over 10 to 20 years. That has moved data centers to the center of state politics over ratepayers, water, and who regulates private power plants.
Incentives
- Sales and use tax exemption. W.S. 39-15-105(a)(viii)(S), mirrored for use tax in W.S. 39-16-105. Computer equipment (servers, storage, racks, cabling, peripherals) is exempt for a data processing services center that buys or rents more than $2 million of qualifying equipment in a calendar year and has made at least $5 million in capital investment. Uninterruptible power supplies, backup generators, and specialized heating, cooling, and air-quality equipment are also exempt once capital investment reaches $50 million. If the $2 million annual threshold is missed, the buyer owes the tax by the following January.
- Jobs certification. The buyer must hold a certification from the Wyoming Business Council that it has created or will create a number of jobs “appropriate to the size and stage of development” of the center. There is no fixed job count in statute.
- Cost. Data centers have reported more than $166 million in cumulative savings under the exemption, a figure the Department of Revenue considers an undercount because reporting is voluntary and incomplete. A 2021 repeal bill died in the House Revenue Committee. No sunset date is written into the statute.
- Property tax. Wyoming has no data-center property tax abatement; data centers pay full property tax on buildings and equipment, which supporters cite as the offset for the sales tax break.
- Governor’s executive order. On June 3, 2026, Governor Gordon signed “Data Centers the Wyoming Way,” a framework directing agencies to recommend policy and legislation within 60 days on eight priorities, including that developers bear all incremental power infrastructure costs, closed-loop cooling, wildlife, and transparency. It is guidance, not a statute.
- Energy dominance fund. SF0123 (2026) created a fund for grants and loans to baseload generation, pipelines, and grid projects, excluding wind and solar.
Power
Wyoming is in the Western Interconnection with no ISO. Cheyenne is served by Black Hills Energy’s Wyoming Electric subsidiary (legally Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power), regulated by the Wyoming Public Service Commission (PSC). Rocky Mountain Power (PacifiCorp) serves most of the rest of the state.
Black Hills has two tariffs that matter. The Large Power Contract Service tariff, approved by the PSC in July 2016, applies to new loads of 13 MW or more and lets the utility buy power on the market for that customer under a negotiated contract, so the cost stays off other customers’ bills; Meta is served under it. The Blockchain Interruptible Service tariff covers interruptible loads of 10 MW or more on contracts of at least two years. In April 2026 Wyoming Electric signed an agreement to procure generation equipment for a prospective 1.8 GW data center customer, backed by $201 million in refundable customer contributions.
The larger projects plan to self-supply. Tallgrass Energy’s BFC Power and Cheyenne Power Hub, approved by Laramie County alongside Project Jade, is 2.7 GW of gas-fired generation dedicated to the campus. Anschutz Corporation subsidiaries have proposed 3,200 MW of gas and 1,000 MW of solar to serve customers directly, and in July 2026 the PSC voted 2-1 to deny their request to be declared exempt from utility regulation; the commission is now drafting rules for non-utility generators. Industrial power averaged 8.81 cents per kWh in the first half of 2026, which is part of why self-supply is attractive.
Water for the Cheyenne projects comes from deep wells; Project Jade’s developers said closed-loop cooling would need roughly the annual use of three households after an initial fill, while opponents cited estimates of up to 200 million gallons a year.
Where the projects are
Nearly everything is in Laramie County. The Switchgrass Industrial Park on Terry Bison Road south of Cheyenne holds the 716-acre Project Tembo site and the Tallgrass power hub. Microsoft’s campuses sit in Bison Business Park and the newly annexed Highlands property on the southeast edge of the city. The North Range Business Park, built with Wyoming Business Council infrastructure grants, hosts Meta and earlier Microsoft phases. Prometheus Hyperscale has proposed a gas-supplied campus in the southwest of the state.
Local politics
Laramie County commissioners approved Project Jade’s site plans unanimously in early January 2026 over objections from the Hyndman Homesites homeowners association about deep wells, traffic, noise, light, turbine emissions, and wastewater ponds. Crusoe, the original data center partner, paused work in June 2026 “at the request of our customer,” and county filings then identified Google, through Jupiter Star Holdings LLC, as the developer of a renamed, $17 billion Project Tembo targeting 2031.
The Cheyenne City Council approved Microsoft’s annexation 6-3 on July 13-14, 2026 after more than five hours of testimony, rejecting calls to delay until the city had a large-industrial policy; a referendum petition followed. Statewide, the debate is about whether residential ratepayers will end up paying for transmission built for data centers, and legislators such as Senator Cale Case have floated taxing generation instead. Supporters point to property tax revenue, construction jobs, and diversification away from coal and oil.
What a landowner should know
Cheyenne-area buyers now think in thousands of acres, not hundreds: Microsoft bought roughly 3,460 acres and Google’s site is 716 acres. Gas pipeline access has become as important as transmission, because the newest projects generate their own power. Land inside or adjacent to an existing industrial park with Business Council infrastructure is the most likely to attract a serious offer.
Option agreements are common, often running 18 to 36 months to allow for annexation and PSC processes. Ask whether the buyer has a signed agreement with Black Hills under the Large Power Contract Service tariff or a generation plan of its own. Wyoming water rights are administered by the State Engineer and deep-aquifer well permits have drawn the most local opposition, so know what rights convey with the land. The state contact is the Wyoming Business Council, which issues the jobs certification required for the exemption; in Cheyenne, Cheyenne LEADS handles recruitment.