Weld County commissioners voted 5-0 on September 9 to approve a Use by Special Review permit for Global AI to operate what could become Colorado’s largest data center on a 41-acre portion of the former Kodak/Carestream industrial campus between Greeley and Windsor, according to Weld County’s post-vote release.
The permit, USR26-0019, is the first data center approval to go through the county’s new Use by Special Review process for data centers. It covers the current proposal in an existing light-industrial facility; future phases or changes require additional county review.
Global AI is a New York-headquartered sovereign AI infrastructure company founded in 2024. It has announced a strategic partnership with HUMAIN, a Saudi Public Investment Fund company that develops full-stack AI capabilities, and Global AI identifies itself as an NVIDIA Cloud Partner. HUMAIN is a company, not an Arabic-language model, even though its portfolio includes Arabic large language models.
The county’s September 9 decision came after an eight-hour hearing that included questions about water, electricity, noise, prior construction enforcement and the company’s engagement with surrounding communities.
What the 5-0 vote actually decided
The county’s decision is narrow. It authorizes the data center use covered by Global AI’s application, but it does not approve every future phase, utility project or permit the company may need.
County rules require compliance with water-supply standards, a will-serve letter from the electricity provider and a 65 dB(C) property-line noise limit. The county also says future expansion beyond the approved proposal will require additional review.
The first phase is expected to employ approximately 20 people, according to Weld County. The commissioners also made a closed-loop cooling system a condition of approval.
Colorado Newsline reported that the cooling system would require an initial fill of about 65,000 gallons and an annual top-off of roughly 6,500 gallons. Commissioners also required a decommissioning plan and bond.
Water, power, and the infrastructure still to be settled
Water and electricity are the clearest examples of what the land-use approval did not resolve.
Greeley City Council approved a pre-annexation agreement with Global AI on September 8. CPR News reported that the agreement gives the parties 18 months to negotiate a final arrangement and is intended to help secure a long-term water supply.
Windsor has also offered a potential route to water service, but only through annexation. The town’s official project-information page explicitly says its will-serve letter is not a formal agreement and that no service agreement with the property owner has been executed.
Power has a similar distinction between paperwork and physical delivery. Global AI presented a will-serve letter from Poudre Valley Rural Electric Association, but Colorado Newsline’s hearing coverage quoted attorney Hugh Gottschalk of Windsor Renewal saying the letter does not allocate all of the power needed or describe how the electricity would be physically delivered to the site.
The same report correctly identifies Marc Savela as senior vice president of development at Broe Real Estate Group. Savela opposed the proposal and raised concerns about its relationship to neighboring planned development. That is separate from objections raised by other neighboring property interests over utility access.
The distinction matters. The county accepted the will-serve documentation required for the land-use process. Opponents argued that having that document is not the same thing as having every physical delivery issue settled.
Noise limits and the enforcement question
The county’s rules include a 65 dB(C) limit at the property line, and commissioners added conditions requiring Global AI to stay within established ambient noise levels and continuously monitor sound from the facility.
Global AI attorney David Foster told commissioners that ordinary operations would be around 65 decibels and that higher levels would be limited to emergency situations involving generators. The practical test will come after the facility begins operating and the county has real-world measurements to compare with the permit conditions.
Trust, enforcement, and community outreach
Global AI entered the hearing with a documented enforcement history. CPR News reported that Weld County issued three stop-work orders and a more serious Notice of Violation and Order to Abate after data-center-specific work was carried out without the required permits.
Global AI initially appealed the stop-work orders, then dropped the appeal and complied with the county’s orders in August, according to county officials cited by CPR. Commissioner Pro-Tem Jason Maxey pressed the company at the September 9 hearing on why the board should trust it after that record.
Community members raised concerns about the project’s water use, electricity needs, infrastructure, and impact on the surrounding area during the September 9 hearing, according to Weld County’s post-vote account.
Commissioner Coordinator Lynette Peppler framed the final decision around land use, noting that the project would reuse an existing industrial facility rather than remove agricultural land from production. Commissioner Chair Scott James similarly pointed to the site’s industrial history and the economic activity that reuse could generate.
What happens next for Weld County residents
The land-use question is settled. The infrastructure picture is not.
Global AI still has to satisfy the development and operational requirements attached to the county approval. Its long-term water path is tied to municipal negotiations and annexation, while Windsor says it has no executed service agreement with the property owner. On electricity, the company has the will-serve letter required by the county, but physical delivery remains a point of dispute.
The decommissioning plan and bond must also be established, while the project’s noise limits and monitoring requirements will become enforceable operating questions once the facility is running.
The timing is not unique to Weld County. In Kearney, Nebraska, the city council approved a 368-megawatt data-center campus on the same night it adopted the city’s first dedicated zoning regulations for data centers.
Weld County’s rules are new, and Global AI is the first applicant to pass through them. The September 9 vote answered the county’s land-use question, while leaving the harder infrastructure questions at other tables: city governments, utility providers, neighboring property owners and future permitting processes.