Posts

The AI Arms Race Needs Power. Imperial Valley Has It. This Shouldn’t Be Complicated.

The global competition to build AI infrastructure is, at its base, a competition for electricity. The models that power AI applications — large language models, computer vision systems, recommendation engines — require enormous computational resources to train and run, and those computational resources require enormous amounts of power to operate. The race to build hyperscale AI infrastructure is, in practical terms, a race to find sufficient electricity in sufficient quantities in locations where large-scale construction is feasible.

This race is being run by every major technology company in the world, and by national governments that have recognized AI capability as a strategic priority. The United States, China, the European Union — each is investing in the infrastructure that will determine which nations and which companies lead the AI economy of the next decade.

Imperial Valley is positioned to be part of the American answer to that competition. It has the power. It has the land. It has the grid independence. What it currently lacks is the institutional alignment that allows these advantages to be converted into actual data center construction.

The Power Math

A competitive hyperscale AI training facility operates in the hundreds of megawatts. The IVDC is designed for 330 MW — substantial, but not unusual for the current generation of AI infrastructure investment. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta are each committing to data center campuses of this scale and larger. The question for site selection is always the same: where is there 300+ megawatts of available, affordable, reliable power with a viable path to interconnection and development?

In California, the honest answer is very few places. CAISO territory is constrained. Coastal locations are expensive. The regulatory environment for large industrial users in populated areas is challenging. Imperial Valley, with IID’s independent grid and geothermal baseload capacity, is one of the genuinely available answers to that question in the entire state.

The IVDC is not just one data center. It is a proof of concept for the viability of Imperial Valley as a data center hub. If it gets built, site selectors will look at the region differently. If it gets blocked, they will draw conclusions from that too — and those conclusions will affect how much of the AI infrastructure buildout lands in California versus in friendlier jurisdictions.

The National Competitiveness Dimension

AI infrastructure is not a private sector vanity project. It is the computational substrate of the next industrial economy. The nations and regions that build it will host the companies that lead it. The communities that attract data center investment will have the jobs, the tax revenue, and the economic momentum that come from being part of the technology supply chain.

Imperial Valley — one of the poorest counties in California — has the natural endowments to be part of this story. The geothermal power resource. The independent grid. The industrial land. The workers who need the jobs. Getting from that potential to that reality requires clearing the obstacles that the current legal and political campaign has placed in the path of a project that has already cleared every legal hurdle the system is supposed to impose.

This shouldn’t be complicated. The land is zoned. The approval was given. The courts have ruled. The opposition has failed at every legal test. The AI infrastructure needs to be built somewhere. Imperial Valley is one of the best places in America to build it. Let it happen.

What the IVDC Signals to Every Tech Investor Watching California

Every major technology infrastructure investment decision involves a site selection process. Engineers evaluate geology, climate, and technical constraints. Finance teams model power costs, labor markets, and tax structures. Legal teams assess the regulatory environment and the political risk of organized opposition. Real estate professionals evaluate land availability and pricing. All of this analysis feeds into a decision that is, ultimately, about one question: where is the expected cost and risk of development low enough that the investment makes sense?

The IVDC is being watched by every site selector who has California on a short list. Not because the specific project is important to them, but because what happens to it tells them something accurate and specific about the California development environment that no amount of promotional material can override.

If the IVDC — a by-right project on appropriately zoned industrial land, approved by the county, validated by the Superior Court, with a closed-loop water system and a dedicated substation — gets blocked by coordinated legal and political obstruction, the message to site selectors is clear: California by-right approvals are not reliable. Industrial zoning does not guarantee development rights. Organized opposition can defeat a legally sound project regardless of legal merit.

That message, once established, is very difficult to reverse.

The Competition That California Is Losing

Arizona, Nevada, and Texas are the primary beneficiaries of California’s data center development challenges. They have cheaper land, more predictable regulatory environments, lower construction costs, and — in many cases — comparable power availability from renewable sources. Phoenix, Las Vegas, and North Texas have absorbed billions of dollars in data center investment over the past decade that might have gone to California communities with comparable or better technical advantages.

Imperial Valley has a genuine competitive argument against these locations: geothermal baseload power, IID’s independent grid, and I-2 zoned industrial land at a fraction of coastal California prices. Those advantages are real and they are significant. But they are only relevant if the development environment is functional — if a developer who secures ministerial approval on by-right industrial land can actually build without five years of litigation by opponents the courts describe as legally insufficient.

The Stakes for Imperial Valley Specifically

For communities in Arizona, Nevada, and Texas that are successfully attracting data center investment, the economic consequences are visible: construction activity, permanent operational employment, property tax revenue, and the supply chain spending that supports local businesses and contractors. Imperial Valley has been watching other communities capture this investment cycle for over a decade while its own development opportunities have been repeatedly complicated by the institutional environment the IVDC fight has documented.

The signal the IVDC sends is not just about this project. It is about whether Imperial Valley is the kind of place where investment commitments are honored, where legal frameworks mean what they say, and where the outcome of a development process is determined by law and engineering rather than by which coalition can sustain litigation the longest.

The community has a stake in establishing that answer as yes. The mechanisms for doing so are the legal process, the political process, and the sustained public accountability that ensures the people blocking this project bear some of the cost of doing so.

1,688 Union Jobs: What the Imperial Valley Data Center Means for Working Families

Imperial County has the highest unemployment rate in California. Not occasionally — consistently, year after year, decade after decade. The Valley’s farmworker families know the math of a seasonal economy by heart: work hard in the harvest, stretch it through the off-season, start over. For a generation of young adults, the calculation has led to one conclusion: leave.

That calculus is exactly what the Imperial Valley Data Center is positioned to change — and exactly why the fight over its approval matters beyond legal briefs and zoning codes.

The Numbers Behind the Jobs

The IVDC project has committed to 1,688 union construction positions across a multi-year build phase. These are not temporary service jobs or part-time retail positions. They are IBEW electrician slots, pipefitter certifications, heavy equipment operator licenses — skilled trades that pay wages a family can actually build on. A journeyman electrician in California earns between $45 and $65 per hour under prevailing wage agreements. A pipefitter on a union contract earns similar rates, with benefits and pension contributions stacked on top.

At those wages, 1,688 positions don’t just represent paychecks. They represent mortgage qualifications. They represent kids who don’t have to move to San Diego or Phoenix to find work. They represent the tax base that funds the schools, the fire stations, and the roads that everyone in the Valley uses.

Beyond construction, the facility will require approximately 100 permanent high-skill operational roles in network engineering, security, and facility management — positions that anchor families to the region rather than pulling them away from it.

What the Opposition Has Offered Instead

The City of Imperial filed a lawsuit to block the project. State Senator Steve Padilla introduced legislation to strip data centers of the legal protections that make this project viable. Environmental groups have lined up to demand reviews, studies, and hearings — each one designed to add years and millions to the developer’s costs until the project collapses under its own carrying costs.

Not one of these actors has proposed an alternative that puts a single union electrician to work in Imperial County. Not one has offered a competing economic development plan. The opposition’s contribution to Imperial County’s unemployment problem is the opposition itself.

The Trades Are Ready

Imperial County’s construction trades have been watching this project. The IBEW locals that would staff the electrical work on a 330-megawatt data center campus represent workers who live in the Valley, pay taxes in the Valley, and send their children to Valley schools. A project of this scale — nearly a million square feet of data hall on a 75-acre industrial site — is the kind of multi-year build that sustains a local trades economy across a full business cycle.

The workers who would fill these positions are not abstractions in an economic impact study. They are the people who attend the same churches as the city council members voting against them. They shop at the same grocery stores as the environmental advocates filing litigation against them. The disconnect between the opposition’s stated values and the material harm their obstruction causes to working families in this community deserves to be named plainly.

The Alternative Is Already Here

Imperial County does not need a study to understand what happens when large employers don’t come. The county has been living that study for generations. The data on chronic unemployment, outmigration of working-age adults, and underfunded public services is extensive and devastating.

The 1,688 jobs attached to the IVDC are not a promise. They are a commitment backed by a $10 billion capital investment — the largest single private investment in Imperial County’s history. The only thing standing between those jobs and the families who need them is a coordinated campaign by officials and organizations who will not be harmed by the unemployment that continues in their absence.

Imperial County chose this project through its legitimate land use approval process. The trades are ready. The land is zoned. The court has ruled. The only question left is whether the people blocking these jobs can be held accountable for the harm that obstruction causes.

The Largest Private Investment in Imperial County History — And Why Some Officials Want to Stop It

There is a question that every economic development official in a chronically underinvested region eventually confronts: when the investment finally comes, will the institutions that are supposed to welcome it actually do so?

Imperial County is confronting that question right now. The Imperial Valley Data Center represents a $10 billion capital commitment to a 75-acre industrial site in one of the most economically distressed counties in California. No private entity in the county’s history has made a comparable investment commitment. Not the agricultural processors, not the energy companies, not the logistics firms that have come and gone over the decades. Ten billion dollars, on land that is zoned for exactly this use, approved through the county’s legitimate ministerial process.

And some of the region’s own officials are litigating to stop it.

Scale in Context

It is worth sitting with what $10 billion means in a county the size of Imperial. The county’s total assessed value — the cumulative value of all property, commercial and residential, within its borders — is measured in the tens of billions. A single private investment of $10 billion doesn’t just add to that base; it restructures it. The ratio of commercial to residential assessed value shifts. The county’s credit position improves. The ability to finance future infrastructure improvements — schools, roads, water systems — expands because the collateral base supporting those instruments is materially stronger.

This is before a single permanent employee is hired, before a single server is powered on, before the recurring $28.75 million in annual property tax begins flowing to county services.

What the Multiplier Looks Like on the Ground

Economic multipliers are often cited as justification for subsidizing private investment. In this case, no subsidy is being requested — the developer is paying full cost for permits, infrastructure improvements, and utility connections. The multiplier effect flows entirely to the county.

During the multi-year construction phase, 1,688 union workers drawing prevailing wages will spend money in Imperial County. They will rent housing, buy groceries, eat at restaurants, purchase work supplies, and use local services. The businesses that serve them will hire additional staff. The hotels and rental properties that house out-of-region workers will generate occupancy tax. The contractors and subcontractors who supply materials and services will place orders with local vendors wherever possible.

Economic research consistently finds that major construction projects generate two to three indirect and induced jobs for every direct construction position. Applied to 1,688 direct positions, that implies a total employment impact of four to five thousand jobs during the build phase — in a county where the working-age population is roughly 100,000 people.

The Infrastructure That Comes With It

The project includes a dedicated 330-megawatt substation — infrastructure that the developer is paying for, not the county, not IID ratepayers. The wastewater recycling upgrades the developer proposed for municipal plants in El Centro and Imperial would have improved those utilities’ infrastructure at private expense. The 862 megawatt-hour battery storage system would add grid stabilization capacity to the IID service territory, benefiting ratepayers who would otherwise pay for those stabilization services through utility rates.

These are not ancillary benefits. They are the kind of private-funded public infrastructure improvements that counties typically spend decades trying to attract through tax incentives, grant competitions, and development agreements. They are being offered as part of the standard project package — and the opposition is fighting to refuse them.

The Institutional Question

When a region consistently fails to convert economic development opportunities into actual investment, it eventually stops attracting them. Site selectors and developers maintain institutional memory. A county that fights a $10 billion by-right project through years of litigation sends a signal to the next developer evaluating a site list that includes Imperial County: find somewhere else.

The officials litigating against this project will not be held responsible for the investments that don’t come next. The residents who depend on the jobs and tax revenues those investments would have generated will bear that cost invisibly — in the school that stays underfunded, the fire station that stays understaffed, the young adult who moves away because there isn’t enough work to stay.

Imperial County has one chance to get this right. The courts have agreed the project is legal. The land has been zoned for this use for decades. The investment is ready. The decision now is whether the county’s institutions will honor the choices that brought it here.