A large data center development is being planned in Cheyenne, Wyoming, by an unknown hyperscale operator or developer.

The Cheyenne City Council Public Services Committee this week approved a development agreement for a data center development known as ‘Project Cosmo’ on the outskirts of the city, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

A company operating through a shell company known as Goat Systems, LLC is looking to develop around 800,000 sq ft (74,320 sqm) of data centers on a 945-acre plot.

The development agreement was referred to the city’s Public Services Committee in late October by the Cheyenne Governing Body. The agreement awaits final approval from the full City Council, which will be discussed at a meeting next week.

The development is set to be located in the High Plains Business Park, which is owned by the Cheyenne-Laramie County Corporation for Economic Development (LEADS). The City of Cheyenne annexed 1,283 acres of land between Clear Creek Parkway and South Greeley Highway for the development of the park earlier this year.

Timelines for development aren’t clear, but a previous MoU agreement between the company and the city from February suggests Goat Systems has to begin work within two years of being granted site application approval.

The company behind Goat Systems is unclear – the company is registered through services firm Corporation Service Company (CSC) – but is likely either a hyperscale operator or a developer serving the hyperscalers.

LEADS owns several other business parks in the area, including the 500-acre Bison Business Park where Microsoft opened a data center campus in 2021.

Cheyenne LEADS CEO Betsy Hale told the Eagle that the project has been in the works for around six years.

"Economic development is a marathon, not a sprint. It's stop and go, and stop and go, and stop and go," she said. "It's engaging, convening, collaborating, getting the government at the table, getting the company at the table, getting the property owner at the table, working at the state level, county level, city level."

Some groundwork has already begun to relocate a natural gas line that runs through the property.

"This is a really exciting day for Cheyenne and for the state of Wyoming," Mayor Patrick Collins said at the Public Services Committee meeting. "I think this is good for the city. We're going to get an amazing investment in our community.”

Collins continued: "We're going to get jobs, it's going to be a great reputation builder for both us and for LEADS, and the infrastructure that's going to come is also going to be good."

Mayor Collins first referred to a potential project in August 2022, saying in his ‘Mayor’s Minutes’ online update that a “very large new business” could potentially choose to come to Cheyenne and was in discussions with LEADS, and the Board of Public Utilities, engineering, and planning.

By October, Collins described Project Cosmo as a potential new data center looking at a site in Cheyenne, which had been in the works for five years. At the time he said the development would use “a system for cooling that does not use water.”

December saw Collins say the unnamed company was looking to “invest billions of dollars to build a 700,000-square-foot data center” and was hoping to break ground by spring 2023.

Last week, the mayor noted the development agreement was awaiting approval.

“I am hoping we will eventually get to an announcement and groundbreaking. My fingers are crossed,” he said.