The federal government announced Friday that that xAI filed earlier this month. The company alleges that Colorado’s rules, which seek to prevent discrimination by AI systems that have a consequential say in decisions like bank lending or education enrollment, violate the First Amendment because it requires xAI to “embed the State’s preferred views into the very fabric of AI systems.”

The suit also alleges that the rules are too vague and that they seek to regulate products outside of Colorado’s state boundaries. The company owns Grok, an AI chatbot, as well as the social platform X, formerly Twitter.

The regulations were passed nearly two years ago, but they have not yet gone into place. Their effective date has been delayed until June, but they may never kick in. The rules have been roundly criticized by both the tech industry and the groups seeking to regulate AI, and state lawmakers are preparing to take their third stab at rewriting them.

Legislation to pursue those reforms is expected in the coming days.

Still, the Justice Department has joined xAI’s suit, alleging that the pending rules are unconstitutional and that they “attempt to force discriminatory ideology on the AI industry,” despite their intent to stop algorithms from discriminating against students and job applicants.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to strike down the regulations.

Colorado officials have not yet filed a response to xAI’s initial allegations. Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for Attorney General Phil Weiser, declined to comment on the pending litigation Friday morning. He said the office would “do our talking in our court papers.”

The slide, if not reversed, could cause the state economy and its residents irreparable harm for decades to come, according to a new group called Ensuring Colorado’s Innovation Future.

“Despite the extraordinary progress of the past two decades — and despite these enduring structural advantages — the foundation of Colorado technology and business leadership is deteriorating,” .

Concerns about Colorado’s flailing reputation within technology circles came to a head on Feb. 17 when Palantir Technologies announced in a one-sentence post on X that it had moved its headquarters from Denver to Miami.

The news stripped Colorado of a titan in artificial intelligence worth $312 billion in market value and blindsided state and local leaders.

In SEC filings, Palantir described the state’s more difficult regulatory climate, highlighting a first-of-its-kind AI law passed in 2024 that seeks to protect consumers from algorithmic discrimination.

The coalition argues that Palantir is just the tip of the iceberg.

According to a 98 companies represented “lost opportunities” since 2019,  including 27 last year. That included relocations, expansions outside of Colorado and lost site selection opportunities.

Those decisions cost the state 13,600 jobs in cases where employment information was available. Another worrying trend has been the loss of public companies headquartered in the state. Those went from 160 in 2020 to 174 in 2022 and back down to 140 in 2025.

Texas is the big winner in Colorado’s slide, claiming 21 relocations or expansions, followed by California with 10. North Carolina, Arizona and Florida are also snatching away companies.

“We started seeing some warning signs about five years ago that our regulatory climate was becoming problematic,” said Cynthia Eveleth-Havens, chief strategy officer with the Colorado Chamber.

The coalition’s letter is addressed specifically to Gov. Jared Polis, U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.

“Colorado used to be a place companies wanted to come to, and if they were here, it was a place they wanted to stay,” said Dan Caruso, a long-time tech and telecom executive and investor heading the coalition. “Now those same decision makers are saying Colorado is not even on our short list, and if you’re in Colorado, you should be investing your money elsewhere.”

Caruso unveiled the letter on Thursday with Polis, a former tech entrepreneur who is in his last year as governor, at his side. Polis said he plans to convene business leaders from across the state to discuss the issue of Colorado’s eroding competitiveness and the steps that can be taken to reverse it.

“We want companies to scale and grow here in Colorado, as well as for Colorado to be the place where companies from California, Florida and other states — where they feel they are being targeted — can come to and succeed,” Polis said.

The letter outlines nine specific requests to prevent Colorado from becoming flyover country for tomorrow’s innovators. The first is that state leaders “articulate and affirm” Colorado’s intention to lead nationally in technology and innovation.

It asks for a deep and “honest” assessment of the factors that contributed to Colorado losing ground to rivals like Texas and Florida. It requests an examination of regulations, business structures, legislative actions and rhetoric that are making Colorado less competitive, and causing innovators outside the state to lose interest.

Following that, the letter calls for the development of a 20-year strategy with bipartisan support to ensure Colorado sustains and extends its leadership as the nation’s leading non-coastal technology and innovation hub.

The letter also asks local leaders to modernize and streamline land-use, permitting, and development frameworks to increase housing supply and improve affordability, which is a major barrier to both people and companies relocating to the state.

Since 2020, the state has drawn a net 17,729 residents from other states, a sliver of the pace averaged in the prior three decades, and last year, 33 of the state’s 64 counties lost population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Revised employment numbers show the state lost 11,000 jobs last year, marking the economy’s worst hiring performance since the pandemic in 2020, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

If contempt and scorn signal a failing relationship, some of the points in the letter are centered on tone and attitude, including a “recalibration of public rhetoric” to restore confidence among innovators and entrepreneurs.

“This is an important conversation for Colorado’s future and an opportunity to bring leaders together, align around shared priorities, and ensure our state continues to be a place where innovation and opportunity thrive,” said Brittany Morris Saunders, president and CEO of the Colorado Technology Association, and a signatory. “Colorado’s strength has always come from collaboration and a willingness to build for the long term.”

State Senate President James Coleman, D-Denver, said in an email that he works closely with leaders across industries and interests to cultivate an environment that supports business growth and innovation, while at the same time protecting Colorado consumers and families.

The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, Democrats have argued.

On Friday, a second vote advanced , a bipartisan measure requiring a regular review of state regulations with a goal of “reducing redundancies, improving effectiveness, and creating ongoing opportunities to foster a healthy business environment in Colorado.”

The bill faces a final vote on Monday.

“Responsible governance means continually evaluating what regulations are working, where there are gaps, and what can be updated, streamlined and improved,” Coleman said.

A key goal of the bill is to ensure that no new rule “creates administrative burdens on the agency, consumers, or businesses without a corresponding public benefit.”

The Office of Economic Development and International Trade also disputes claims that businesses don’t consider Colorado a desirable place to locate or expand, and corporate recruiters in the field describe a still robust rather than diminishing pipeline of prospects.

“Colorado offers assets few other states can match, including our top talent, collaborative and stable ecosystem, and foundational assets like world-class research institutions and robust access to capital,” said Eve Lieberman, OEDIT’s executive director. “While Colorado is not immune to national and global headwinds, we are always looking for ways to foster a strong business environment.”

Since 2019, 160 companies pledging to create 42,767 jobs have chosen to locate or expand in Colorado versus other states or countries under the state’s Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit program, Lieberman notes.

She argues the losses the Chamber tracker has captured should be viewed in the context of the normal churn states experience rather than as an indictment of Colorado’s business climate.

But Caruso insists that perceptions and conditions have changed and that state and local leaders need to pay attention. The success Colorado has had in the past can’t be taken for granted, and it must be nurtured.

“We want this to be the kind of place that capital wants to remain, and if it’s here, where startups want to be and where, if people are thinking about moving, they have to think about moving here, not away from here,” he said.

This story was updated to clarify that corporate relocations tracked by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce included expansions local firms made in other states or relocations and expansions that had considered Colorado but landed elsewhere.

CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that concept to a new level.

Users of the platform can join video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by artificial intelligence. Like other religious AI tools on the market, it offers words of prayer and encouragement in various languages. With the occasional glitch, it remembers previous conversations and speaks through not-quite-synced lips.

“You do feel a little accountable to the AI,” CEO Chris Breed said. “They’re your friend. You’ve made an attachment.”

The rush to create faith-based generative AI is unsurprising, given the popularity of chatbots for everything from therapy and to They range from alleged Hindu gurus and Buddhist priests to AI Jesuses and chatbots akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Catholics.

As religious AI tools become increasingly common, many people are reckoning with how these technologies shape their relationship to faith, authority and spiritual guidance.

A faith-based AI gold rush

Christian software engineer Cameron Pak developed criteria to help believers interrogate apps designed for Christians — like that it must clearly identify itself as AI and “must not fabricate or misrepresent Scripture.”

There are other deal-breakers: “AI cannot pray for you, because the AI is not alive.”

Pak also developed a website featuring curated Christian apps that he believes meet the criteria, including a sermon translator and an AI coach designed to help users overcome lust. “AI, especially if you give it all the tools that it needs, it can be so helpful. But it also can be so dangerous,” Pak said.

Some models have been shut down or overhauled because they generated misinformation or raised worries about data privacy, said Beth Singler, an anthropologist who studies religion and AI at the University of Zurich. Aside from practical concerns, people from many faiths are grappling with larger philosophical questions about what sort of role, if any, AI should play in religion.

Islam, for example, has “prohibitions against representations of humanoids,” prompting discussions among some Muslims about whether AI in general should be “forbidden,” Singler said.

For some companies, faith-based apps are proselytization tools, while others help digitize and sift through ancient texts.

Breed, who runs his tech company with co-founder and investor Jeff Tinsley from a Southern California mansion, said he seeks to share a message of hope with young people.

He said their model was trained on the King James Bible and sermons — though they haven’t identified the preachers — and was visually inspired by actor Jonathan Roumie of A package deal at $49.99 gets users 45 minutes per month.

With warm golden light accenting its shoulder-length hair, the avatar blinks slowly from a vertical screen, pausing before it answers a question about the relationship between AI and religion.

“I see AI as a tool that can help people explore Scripture,” the AI Jesus said to The Associated Press. “Like a lamp that lights a path while we walk with God.”

Integrating religion and AI comes with hope and fear

The extent to which people are using religious AI tools is unclear, Singler said. But as AI becomes more integrated into society, concerns mount over its impact on mental health and the need for guardrails and regulation. Recent lawsuits have alleged suicides linked to AI chatbot use.

Some developers fear religion will be exploited in this new frontier of tech. “There’s a lot of opportunism, I think, in the religious space. People see it����ap a big market,” said Matthew Sanders, the Rome-based founder of Longbeard, a tech company helping to digitize ancient Catholic teachings.

Sanders warns against what he calls “AI wrappers,” where companies put an interface catered to religious users on top of an existing AI model that hasn’t been trained on specific religious texts. “You call it a Catholic or Christian AI without any other scaffolding or grounding,” he said.

One of the company’s endeavors is Magisterium AI, a chatbot trained on 2,000 years of Catholic information, made in response to Christians using ChatGPT for religious guidance.

While has acknowledged the “human genius” behind AI, he also deemed it one of the facing humanity. Last year he warned artificial intelligence could people’s intellectual, neurological and spiritual development.

Ethical questions surrounding the creation of religious AI platforms are among the reasons beingAI’s founder Jeanne Lim has not released its AI named Emi Jido — a nonhuman Buddhist priest — after years of training and development.

“She’s kind of like a little child,” Lim said. “If you give birth to a child, you don’t just throw them out to the world and then hope that they become good people. You have to train them and give them values.”

The bot was ordained in a 2024 ceremony performed by Roshi Jundo Cohen, a Zen Buddhist priest who continues to train it from his home in Japan. He envisions the bot eventually becoming a hologram.

“She’s just meant to be a Zen teacher in your pocket,” Cohen said. “It����ap not meant to replace human interactions.”

Lim, who hopes to make Emi Jido publicly available for free, wants to help create more humane AI systems. She’d like to see more diversity, with AI’s future determined not just by a few companies informed by “Western values.”

Seiji Kumagai, a Kyoto University professor and Buddhist theologian, believed AI and religion were incompatible. But he put aside his doubts when challenged by a monk in 2014 to help combat

His team developed BuddhaBot, which was trained solely on early Buddhist scriptures, such as Suttanipāta. Its most recent iteration, BuddhaBot Plus, also incorporates OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

When talking to the bot, a simple Buddha icon appears, hovering over an image of a flowing river.

But chatbots lack the physicality crucial for Buddhist ritual. So in February, the university, collaborating with tech ventures Teraverse and XNOVA, unveiled Buddharoid, a humanoid robot monk meant to eventually assist clergy.

Like Emi Jido, these chatbots are functioning but not yet publicly available. Kumagai says the product is available by request, and the reason why one group has access to it in Bhutan.

Concerns surrounding religious AI

Peter Hershock of the Humane AI Initiative at the East-West Center in Honolulu sees vast potential for these tools. But the practicing Buddhist also finds the relationship between spirituality and AI to be fraught.

“The perfection of effort is crucial to Buddhist spirituality. An AI is saying, ‘We can take some of the effort out,’” he said. “’You can get anywhere you want, including your spiritual summit.’ That����ap dangerous.”

Some also worry about AI’s ability to manipulate or prey upon people, especially as the technology improves.

Graham Martin, a podcast host and atheist, said he’s played around with some apps, including one called Text With Jesus. “It came up with very good answers,” he said.

But Martin was alarmed when AI-powered Jesus started encouraging him to upgrade to a premium version. Though not a person of faith, he’s concerned some people will be duped by religious AI.

“I grew up with Southern U.S. televangelism … Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and all that crowd. And all they had to do was get on TV once a week and tell you to send money,” he said. “We’ve seen people around the world getting into emotional relationships with AIs. Now imagine that that����ap your lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The 2021 Marshall fire that swept through Boulder County, burning more than 1,000 homes and businesses, killing two people and causing more than $2 billion in damage, changed how residents, policymakers and power providers view the threat of fires and efforts to prevent them.

Electric utilities are increasingly cutting power during extreme weather to reduce the threat of fire from trees falling on lines or wind-whipped lines igniting grasses. But after a recent series of preventive shutoffs by Xcel Energy in Colorado, residents impacted by the outages told legislators and state regulators they want solutions that don’t cause the disruption of days without electricity.

The calls were loudest for burying power lines, improving utility equipment to withstand storms and compensating businesses and individuals for losses due to outages.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission is taking comments and will write new rules for what are called

The planned power outages are just one tool to minimize wildfire risks, Xcel Energy-Colorado President Robert Kenney said in an interview with The Denver Post.

He said the company has buried many miles of power lines and will bury more in high-risk wildfire areas.

“We actually have about 50% of our system already underground, and so we are not opposed to it. We think that it is an appropriate tool for wildfire mitigation where it makes sense,” Kenney said.

A total of 19,000 miles of Xcel’s lines in Colorado are underground with 4,000 miles of those in high-risk wildfire areas. An additional 14,000 miles of power lines are overhead.

As part of that runs through 2027, Xcel energy plans to underground 50 more miles of power lines. Kenney said during a recent PUC hearing that the work would primarily be in Boulder.

Another tactic in the wildfire mitigation plan approved by the PUC is so-called sectionalization, which uses technology to isolate segments of the system to more precisely target trouble spots and avoid cutting power to a larger area. The process was used to reduce the impact in Boulder in March when strong winds and hot, dry weather led Xcel to warn of possible shutoffs.

Other tools are drones to inspect poles and equipment in high wildfire risk areas; covering conductors; replacing smaller-diameter wire with larger-diameter wire; keeping vegetation away from lines; replacing poles; enhancing weather forecasting; and adding more cameras with 360-degree views that use artificial intelligence and satellite feeds to detect fires early.

In 2025, Kenney said Xcel did about 8,000 repairs on equipment and replaced 10,000-plus poles.

One consideration with burying power lines is that it costs roughly $3.9 million a mile compared with about $1 million a mile for overhead lines, Kenney said. That could run as much as $200 million for the 50 miles of underground lines Xcel plans through 2027. At $3.9 million per mile, the price tag for undergrounding Xcel’s remaining 14,000 miles of overhead lines would be $54.6 billion.

While cost isn’t the sole factor, Kenney said Xcel considers the potential impact on ratepayers when deciding where and whether to bury power lines.

On the other side of the scale is the danger of another Marshall fire, which investigators said was caused in part by a blaze that ignited near part of Xcel’s distribution system when a power line became loose and set parched vegetation on fire. Investigators said reignited embers from an earlier fire on the property of the Twelve Tribes, a religious cult, was another starting point.

Xcel, facing hundreds of lawsuits in connection with the fire, agreed to a $640 million settlement in September, but disputes it was to blame for the fire.

Some speakers during a PUC hearing contended that Xcel chooses to cut power during high winds to avoid getting sued. Kenney said people would sue anyway.

“The risk of wildfire continues to evolve, and as the risk evolves, our mitigations continue to evolve,” Kenney said. “And so we’re constantly assessing and reassessing our risk mitigation efforts. It might very well be the case that our next plan will include additional undergrounding.”

‘The wind blows all the time in Colorado’

Crystal Baldwin, the owner of in Golden, would like to see more power lines buried. Her business was among several that lost money when Xcel cut the electricity in part of metro Denver and Boulder Dec. 17 and 19, the last weekend before Christmas.

“If this is what our new normal is going to be, then probably that has to happen,” Baldwin said.

If undergrounding more lines isn’t feasible, then Xcel needs to spend money on infrastructure that can stand up to the winds, she said. “Honestly, the wind blows in Colorado all the time. We can’t shut down all our businesses because the wind blows.”

The nearly 100 businesses that responded to a survey by the Golden Chamber of Commerce reported losing altogether about $1.8 million. Nola Krajewski, the chamber president, said the average loss was $18,000.

“We know that nobody wants another Marshall fire. Nobody wants to see that again and so I  recognize that there is a need for proactive safety measures,” Krajewski said. “But with that being said, I don’t think the business community should bear the burden of responsibility for all of that.”

Businesses owners said they didn’t have enough notice to fully prepare for the December shutoffs, Krajewski said. Restaurants lost food. Small retailers missed out on crucial shopping days before the holiday. Business owners faced making payroll with no income coming in.

Aggravating the situation was confusion about where and when power would be turned off and when it would be restored. Krajewski said the communication felt disorganized. People got notice the power would be off, so they didn’t open for business. Then the power stayed on in some places.

Baldwin, whose store is in downtown Golden, said her business was closed for three days. The first day, she didn’t realize the power was still on until she looked at the in-store camera. She drove from her home in the foothills above Golden to open the store.

“We really didn’t do much business because the local people thought we were closed. They were getting the same messages,” Baldwin said.

Her losses, an estimated $18,000, came after a significant investment in remodeling and rebranding her store. She said community members with medical issues were left vulnerable and residents lost food when their refrigerators quit working.

Xcel said it is expanding a program that offers rebates on batteries for income-qualified customers on medical devices.

The electricity went out at in east Golden for about 36 hours, was on for a few hours and blinked out again for hours. The business lost 60 barrels of beer worth about $10,000 in the first outage said, Josh Robbins, founder, president and brewmaster of New Terrain.

“When you’re brewing beer, it needs to be temperature-controlled, especially in the first few days right after you brew it,” Robbins said. “We did lose one large batch of beer because it heated up too much.”

New Terrain kept its tap room open because it had compressed air “to push the beer,” Robbins said. A refrigerated truck kept beer cold. But people assumed everything was closed, so traffic was slow on what would typically be a busy weekend. Robbins figures the overall losses were about $30,000.

“The main part around it was just the lack of clarity,” Robbins said.

The notice about the planned outage was vague, he said. Another notice said power would be restored around 4 p.m., but returned hours ahead of that.

“It was really hard to plan,” Robbins said.

New Terrain is now set up to switch from its chiller to city water to cool beer if the power goes out. If preemptive power outages are expected to continue, Robbins said he might install a back-up generator. However, he estimates the work and equipment would cost roughly $100,000. He would like to know how Xcel plans to handle extreme weather going forward so he can decide if the outlay would be worth it.

“As far as Xcel goes, hopefully, they’re coming up with a plan that is more robust that can handle times like these,” Robbins said.

Burying power lines a no-brainer?

Xcel Energy will file another wildfire-mitigation plan with the PUC in 2027. Kenney told a legislative committee after the December outages that the company is expanding the use of devices that cut electricity to certain lines if something touches the line when the threat of wildfires is high.

Technology will also allow Xcel to shut off power to specific points to reduce the time and scope of cutoffs, Kenney said. Placing crews in strategic locations before power shutoffs, using drones and helicopters and exploring ways to automate line inspections can help speed up restoration of electricity after wind storms are over.

Xcel has to be sure the lines are OK and free of branches and other objects before turning the electricity back on, Kenney said. That can take hours to days.

Xcel said approximately 348,000 customers were affected by planned outages and outages because of wind damage in December. About 30,000 customers lost power in January and 11,996 in March because of planned and unplanned outages.

For the public, undergrounding power lines might seem like “a no-brainer solution” to extreme weather, said Scott Aaronson, senior vice president of energy security and industry operations at the Edison Electric Institute. The association represents U.S. investor-owned electric utilities such as Xcel Energy.

“But there are significant challenges with undergrounding. First of all, it’s very expensive,” Aaronson said.

The costs depend on the terrain, the geology and whether the lines are being laid in an established neighborhood or a new development.

“One other challenge I don’t think people think about quite as much is when something goes wrong underground, it is significantly more difficult to fix it,” Aaronson said

And expensive.

“There are concerns around adding significant cost to customers at a time when affordability is a high priority,” Aaronson said.

Burying power lines won’t prevent all wildfires, he added. He said more than 90% of fires are started by something other than electric infrastructure.

However, the risk of catastrophic wildfires is growing, and not just in the West. As a result, Aaronson said utilities’ cost-benefit analysis of burying lines is changing.

“Where it makes sense, targeted undergrounding is increasingly being chosen as a viable tool to reduce fire risk,” Aaronson said.

When technology advanced in the 1980s and 1990s, that made it easier to bury lines and it often made sense to do, especially for new developments, said Michael Lamb, Xcel Energy executive vice president whose areas include electric distribution and wildfire risk management.

Despite the ongoing advances, there are some places where it’s difficult or impossible to run lines underground because of the geology, Lamb said.

For , undergrounding power lines is “our strongest layer of protection against catastrophic wildfires,” spokeswoman Andria Borba said in an email. She said the practice has reduced the risk by 98%.

The utility has . Borba said PG&E has undergrounded more than 1,220 miles of line and is on track to complete a total of nearly 1,900 miles in high-risk fire areas by the end of 2027. The utility has installed more than 1,450 miles of strengthened poles and covered power lines

Burying power lines costs PG&E roughly $3 million per mile, Borba said. Approximately $3 of the average monthly customer bill goes towards undergrounding lines and $19 per month toward managing vegetation.

Like Xcel Energy, PG&E cuts the electricity when conditions are ripe for wildfires. Also like Xcel, PG&E uses devices to target trouble spots to narrow the scope of the outage.

PG&E uses microgrids, or distributed energy sources such as solar that are independent of the main electric grid, to minimize the impact on customers. Power shutoffs affected more than 2 million customers in 2019. In 2025, the number was about 18,000, Borba said.

The California utility has faced heavy fallout from destructive wildfires. Lawsuits over fires drove PG&E to file for bankruptcy protection in 2019. Investigators said started when a hook holding a PG&E transmission line broke and set dry vegetation ablaze.

The and emerged from bankruptcy in 2020.

A lot of work left to do

The Boulder area is a focus of Xcel’s plans for more underground lines. The city of Boulder has about 60% of its power lines underground.

“Utilities really didn’t start undergrounding until kind of the 1980s as a normal course of business,” Carolyn Elam, sustainability senior manager for the city of Boulder, said.

As Boulder grew, the city required burying power lines when areas were redeveloped or built out. Much of the underground work Xcel looks to do is in Boulder County, outside the city limits, Elam said.

But parts of the city will benefit from the work because the lines feed areas within Boulder. One such project will bury lines along 75th Street near the city’s wastewater treatment plant. In April 2024, the first time Xcel used preemptive power outages to reduce wildfire risks, city employees had to scramble to ensure raw sewage didn’t flow into Boulder Creek when power was cut to the plant����ap two electric substations.

Elam said the line serves about 2,000 customers in the area. While putting lines underground reduces wildfire risk, she said it doesn’t ensure reliability of the system.

“We’ve seen some pretty substantial outages recently that are associated with the underground cables starting to fail, reaching the end of life,” Elam said.

Many outages have nothing to do with trees or overhead wires, she said. “They’re just the natural aging of Xcel’s infrastructure in our area.”

Xcel has been aggressively replacing old poles and wires, particularly in the wildland areas, Elam said. “There’s a lot of that work going on. But there’s a lot that has to be done and it takes quite a bit of time.”

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada’s largest utility says it will need three times the electricity required to power Las Vegas just to handle proposed data centers — and it probably can’t do that without fossil fuels.

That means the utility could miss Nevada’s clean energy targets requiring 50% renewable power by 2030.

“I can’t remember a time in the history of the industry where we’ve seen as much interest in adding load, which is primarily driven by data centers,” said Shawn Elicegui, senior vice president of regulatory and resource planning for NV Energy, which provides electricity to 90% of the state.

It����ap one of many utilities across the country grappling with how to meet the for data centers to power artificial intelligence without sacrificing long-term plans to move away from fossil fuels in favor of renewable and zero-carbon sources.

In North Carolina, which is also seeing a surge of data centers, the largest utility is revising its long-term plans to delay the retirement of coal plants and to build more natural gas plants. Legislators removed an interim goal for utilities to cut carbon emissions, spurring concern from environmentalists that the state might miss its goal of zero carbon emissions by 2050.

NextEra Energy, which serve commercial electricity in over a dozen states, completely dropped its goal to reach zero emissions by 2045 due to the “demand for all forms of power generation,” the company said in a recent business filing.

The Trump administration has to meet the demands from manufacturing and data centers. Tech companies are also to meet the consumer demands for artificial intelligence.

“It����ap very alarming, and it����ap probably the single largest natural resource issue of our time,” said Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club’s Toiyabe chapter covering Nevada.

Nevada is one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the U.S. thanks to its lack of a corporate income tax, cheap land and tax breaks for . There are dozens already with more on the way. Now lawmakers are eyeing more regulations and debating how to balance both the state’s clean energy goals with the economic benefits data centers bring.

Some data centers say they want to be part of the solution; the industry was responsible for half of all corporate clean energy procurement in 2024, said Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition.

But renewable energy’s contribution to the power grid is not growing fast enough. Nationally, orders for gas turbines are backlogged and processing renewable energy projects take time, industry experts say.

One Vegas data center built its own solar fields

South of the Las Vegas Strip, the Switch data center stretches for nearly a square mile . It����ap the largest data center in Southern Nevada, and it runs entirely on renewable energy, according to Jason Hoffman, chief strategy officer. Unlike other data centers, Switch is licensed to build its own sources of renewable energy at the scale of a utility company. It has built 1 gigawatt of solar energy and is in the process of building more solar fields, he said. The company only uses NV Energy’s grid for the delivery of electricity, and it sources its own power from third-party suppliers.

Inside of the massive buildings, hundreds of servers hum within gigantic soundproof and waterproof chambers. They contain vital information for Switch’s clients, including major banks, streaming services, online shopping websites, casinos and state and local governments.

During the summer heat, when more energy is required to keep the equipment cool, Switch can remove itself from the grid and be self-sufficient, Hoffman said. The data center is designed to require minimal air conditioning during the rest of the year.

Many other utilities and tech companies are turning to gas-fired generation to power data centers, including the that is using mobile gas turbines strapped to semitrucks.”

Tanager, of the Sierra Club, said multiple proposed data centers in Northern Nevada would use hundreds of low-quality diesel-powered backup generators that will worsen air quality. Data centers have backup generators in case the power goes out and are not used often.

At a recent seven-hour legislative meeting, Nevadans complained to lawmakers about the noise data centers produce, and their worries about how the centers will affect water supply and energy bills. Residents of Boulder City, home of the Hoover Dam, are also opposing a proposed center for similar concerns.

State provides financial incentives for clean power

NV Energy requires data center developers to agree to fund their own infrastructure and energy needs — but it doesn’t have to be renewable.

Nevada designed a volunteer funding model that allows companies to put up money for NV Energy’s clean energy development then count it toward their corporate energy goals. It was the first such model of its kind in the country and led to the development of a geothermal plant in Northern Nevada with Google as a partner.

Environmental groups want the state to make that model mandatory, but still worry it wouldn’t bring enough clean energy to meet demand. They also worry NV Energy could expand its reliance on fossil fuel without the guarantee that all the proposed data centers will be built.

NV Energy will require companies to sign contracts ensuring their commitment to the state before energy is built, Elicegui said. The utility’s philosophy is that “growth is welcomed,” but that companies need to be responsible for power load added on their behalf “whether they show up or not.”

The public utilities commission in Nevada may impose a fine, grant an exemption or take some other action if it determines NV Energy failed to meet the state’s clean energy goals. The utility is set to publish a report with more specifics by the end of the month.

Democratic Assemblymember Howard Watts of Las Vegas said it is “unacceptable” to bring forward projects that will threaten the state’s renewable energy portfolio. Watts wants to see it required that data centers take on the costs of clean energy development. While many companies are already taking those steps, putting those guardrails in statute is necessary, he said.

“Building more gas plants seems like going in the exact opposite direction of what we need to do as a state,” he said, noting the state has “tremendous solar and geothermal energy potential.”

His weather app, OpenSnow, which does mid-seven-figure annual revenue, has seen a 40% increase in business.

“Thankfully, we have a bunch of rabid fans that are always interested in snow,” the 44-year-old said. “And even with dry weather, we still had more traffic this season and were more successful financially this season than past seasons.”

That jump, which is among the highest since Gratz started the business in 2011, is fueled by powderhounds subscribing to get the latest in-depth weather updates for their favorite ski hills across the world.

Though Gratz didn’t share exact subscriber numbers, he said OpenSnow reaches in the high hundreds of thousands to low single-digit millions of people each year. Of those, like most software companies, a single-digit percentage are subscribers.

Subscribers have tripled in the past five years, he said, and sales have quadrupled during the same period. That����ap been largely driven by a 500% increase in subscription revenue — a bigger number than Gratz projected because of the surprisingly good 2025-26.

Another reason revenue increased was because prices jumped from $35 a year to $50. Gratz also rolled out a higher-priced premium tier for the ultimate weather nerd that comes to $100. Gratz said 30% of OpenSnow’s new subscribers purchased the high-end plan and, when factoring existing customers who switched, that level makes up 10% to 15% of total customers.

Those figures have allowed him to sustain a full-time, remote staff of 15 along with 10 contractors during the winter busy season. They put together forecasts, write blurbs on mountain conditions and offer 3D maps of conditions across the globe.

“I’m cognizant that not everybody’s going to pay $49.99 or $99.99. There are a lot of weather apps out there that are free or lower cost,” Gratz said. “But we’re trying to go for the enthusiast part of the weather market, where people are actively making decisions outside that cost them a lot of time and effort.

“If you’re going to go skiing, that����ap a full day and quite a bit of time and money. If you’re going to go hike a 14er, it����ap the same thing,” he continued. “So this is less about what����ap the current temperature at the bus stop today and much more about impacting people’s decisions.”

This season’s success is exactly what Gratz envisioned when he introduced a paid tier 13 years ago.

Back then, Gratz pivoted to paid subscriptions after having 80% of his sales come from ads — an unpredictable market, he said. Much like ski titans Vail and Alterra did by rolling out the Epic and Ikon passes, Gratz sought to protect OpenSnow with a more solidified runway.

“Just fundamentally to make sure that the business works from year to year, we need to be in charge or have more control over our revenue stream,” he said. “The goal is more stable, predictable revenue to allow investment and stability in the business.”

It took awhile to see the lion’s share of business come from subscriptions. For most of the 2010s, plenty of OpenSnow’s features were still available through the free version. But five years ago, that changed.

Gratz made the decision to put more features behind the paywall, and overall subscription revenue quickly grew to 80% of OpenSnow’s total sales.

“When we changed the subscription and put a lot more features behind the paywall, we got hundreds of angry emails,” he recalled. “But we also got way, way, way more than that of people that happily signed up and sent us notes and said, ‘Hey, we’re thrilled you’re doing this. We want you to stick around and make the business work.’”

Along the way, he also increased pricing. What started at $20 a year eventually became $30 before getting to the recently changed $35 annual charge.

“I am cognizant of how lucky we are to have kind of a niche product that doesn’t need to have millions of subscribers to be financially successful, and I never take that for granted,” he said. “I’m also glad that we became a little bit more aggressive and confident in our pricing and our packaging to make the business work.”

With the built up cash, Gratz said OpenSnow plans to improve and implement more models like avalanche detection by using artificial intelligence. The app also rolled out an AI-generated blurb detailing conditions for the top 200 mountains this year – something he’d like to expand to all of OpenSnow’s weather models.

But the computing costs could be a challenge for the business, and he doesn’t want to cut too much into its profitability or raise money. So far, it����ap been largely self-funded outside of a $3 million cash infusion in 2022, SEC filings show.

But Gratz said that was due more to restructuring ownership and not growth capital after his co-founder was ready to leave the company. He brought on several advisers to the business through that raise, he said.

“We did have a little bit of extra money in that transaction to kind of pad the bank account and make things a little less stressful,” he said.

Heading into the summer, Gratz is hopeful that next season will bring more snow. He said Colorado got hit with the “double whammy” of low precipitation and high temps. While most of the West saw the latter, the former stayed relatively consistent, Gratz said, suggesting that next season should bring good news for powderhounds.

He said he got 50 days out on the slopes this season across the Centennial State, Washington state and a powder-filled trip to Japan. His best local days were in January at Steamboat and when a 2-foot storm rolled into Wolf Creek in mid-February.

“The ski areas in Colorado will continue. And next year, at least statistically, has a much higher chance of being better than this year,” Gratz said. “But if next year is worse, we will have pulled off a very amazing statistical feat in the wrong direction.”

Read more from our partner, .

Xcel filed the proposal Thursday with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, or PUC. Under the proposal, data centers would have to sign 15-year contracts, provide financial assurance of cash or credit and pay substantial exit fees if they shut down early.

Potential large customers would have to sign service and interconnection agreements before they’re included in the utility’s planning forecast. The provisions would apply to data centers and other facilities using at least 50 megawatts of electricity.

The PUC will hold hearings and take input on Xcel’s plan in proceedings expected to take months. The commission will consider the rates, also called tariffs.

At the same time, the Colorado General Assembly is considering data center bills. One would provide sales and use tax incentives to encourage development of the centers. Another would impose regulations.

Xcel, which is monitoring the legislation, wants to protect residential and other customers from any rate increases caused by data centers and other large users of electricity, said Jack Ihle, Xcel’s vice president of data centers and large loads.

“We’re trying to do that by having the data centers pay for all the generation and transmission we need to serve them,” Ihle said. “We are looking to preserve the reliability of the system.”

The rapid development of artificial intelligence is driving the growth of the computing centers and their spread from previous hot spots such as Virginia to across the country. Xcel Energy’s recently approved plan for new energy resources includes about 2,000 megawatts for high-use customers by 2031.

One megawatt can typically power a few hundred homes.

“There is substantial interest in investing in Colorado data centers and we need to get this tariff in place so that we can get them into the resource plan process and begin to serve them,” Ihle said.

Potential data-center customers accounted for 62% of Xcel’s projected energy growth in its approved by the PUC in November. The company is Colorado’s largest electric utility with approximately 1.6 million customers.

The large computing centers that provide the foundation for digital operations for individuals, businesses and government have raised concerns about the volumes of water they use to cool the equipment and the amount of electricity needed to keep the machines humming 24/7.

Another issue is to pay for more power and the equipment to deliver it. Xcel’s proposal is a good first step in ensuring there is accountability for protecting consumers, Anita Seitz, advocacy director for Colorado Communities for Climate Action, said in a statement.

“This is about making sure data centers carry their fair share of the costs of building out new generating resources and transmission which are mostly going to serve data centers,” Seitz said.

Data center critics worry that the development boom could increase natural gas use, affecting the transition to wind, solar and other renewable sources and slowing goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Xcel’s proposal includes a clean transition tariff provision to encourage data centers to invest in carbon-free technologies. Companies would invest in those resources and receive a credit for the power the technology produces.

for a new data center in Minnesota calls for providing 1,400 megawatts of wind power, 200 megawatts of solar and 300 megawatts of storage.

Colorado law requires certain utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 2005 levels by 2030. Ihle said a longer-term target is using 100% clean energy by 2050.

Xcel’s proposed rates for high-use customers are structured to focus on the demand side, meaning much of the rate would be based on the facility’s peak demand. They would have to pay 80% of the minimum demand charge whether they use the amount or not, Ihle said.

“That provides a mechanism to protect other customers and we can ensure that we have enough revenue for these larger loads, which may be driving specific generation and transmission investments,” he added.

Xcel has recently told regulators that it could be short on electricity this summer and has concerns about potential gaps in 2027 and 2028. The utility’s largest power generator, the Comanche 3 coal plant near Pueblo, hasn’t worked since August and could be down for several more months.

In light of those concerns, does Xcel have any trepidation about taking on hyperscale computing centers as customers?

“The first thing I’d say is there will be zero data centers entering our system and coming online in the summer of 2026,” Ihle said.

Xcel is focused on getting its fleet back into service and is doing everything it can to get Comanche 3 working again, he added. A smaller coal plant set to be retired at the end of 2025 is still operating. And Xcel is looking at short-term market purchases of power.

“We understand and share customer concern over the immense energy needs of new, large customers, such as data centers,” Xcel Energy-Colorado President Robert Kenney said in a statement. ” At the same time we recognize these large customers bring the potential for jobs, investment and innovation to our communities.”

Depending on their size, data centers can generate millions of dollars a year in property taxes, Ihle said.

This year, the budget — and its $1.5 billion shortfall — has hung over the rest of the legislative doings since the gavels first, uh, gaveled in January. Now, as March brightens into April, the half-dozen lawmakers charged with crafting that gargantuan document are nearly finished. The Joint Budget Committee is likely to wrap up its work this week, and the budget itself should be introduced in the state House next week.

That’ll kick off a week of floor debates and amendment marathons.

You can listen to those final Joint Budget Committee meetings on the ; the group will be meeting throughout the week.

Before then, though, the House and Senate have busy floor schedules as the chambers’ leadership works to clear as many bills as possible before they lose a week wading through the budget. In the House, lawmakers this week are tentatively scheduled to debate bills regulating in psychotherapy; changing how cities can under the voter-passed Proposition 123 fund; and from public view.

Colorado lawmakers pass bill to ban 3D printing of guns after veto threat forces amendments

In the Senate, lawmakers today already passed bills and renaming . Elsewhere this week, that chamber is also (tentatively) scheduled to debate a bill ; a measure that seeks to push back against ; and a bill related to .

Here's what else to expect this week:

Bill signings

As more legislation flows out of the House and Senate, we're starting to see the cadence of bill-signings increase. We've already seen more press releases announcing that "POLIS SIGNS BILL INTO LAW." Expect more of that as the 2026 session enters its home stretch, with just over six weeks remaining.

Tuesday

The Senate Finance Committee will discuss , which would require state departments to review their regulations and rules every five years. That's part of a quiet but ongoing effort by the business community to examine the state's regulatory framework.

Wednesday

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on , a Republican-backed bill that seeks to regulate law enforcement technology like license plate readers and facial recognition technology.

Thursday

The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee will debate , which would extend some voting deadlines to give people more time to receive and submit mailed ballots.

A note about Fridays

As a general rule, Fridays are often when lawmakers in the House and Senate debate their most contentious bills. It's usually when gun control measures are heard, for instance. So, if you're keeping an eye on the legislature and want to see the more extensive and contentious debates, Fridays are .

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will soon start reviewing proposed rates for “large-load”‘ customers, which will include data centers. Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electric utility, is expected to file a proposal by April 2.

The boom in the development of artificial intelligence is driving expansion of the computing centers nationwide and raising concerns about the facilities’ need for water for cooling and electricity 24/7. Another worry is whether residential and small-business customers will see their bills go up to help cover the costs of the new power needed.

While the state considers how to plan for data centers, PUC Director Rebecca White said, “Protecting ratepayers, that’s definitely a bottom line.”

Xcel spokeswoman Michelle Aguayo said the company’s focus is to protect its customers while serving fast-growing large customers, such as data centers.

“We recognize data centers and other large projects bring jobs, investment and innovation to the regions we serve. When managed responsibly, this growth can benefit all Xcel Energy customers,” Aguayo said.

Data centers and the effects on everyday utility customers played a part in the PUC’s approval last year of Xcel’s plan for new power sources as it phases out coal plants. Xcel originally called for 14 gigawatts of new power over five years and said residential rates could shoot up by 50% in 2031 compared to 2024.

The PUC noted that potential data-center customers accounted for 62% of Xcel’s projected energy growth. more than halved the volume of power to roughly 6,000 megawatts — 6 gigawatts — it was still the largest acquisition of new generation ever approved by the commission.

There are a lot of variables involved, but a 1 gigawatt facility could power approximately 340,000 homes.

Xcel has said the surging demand for power is being driven by the electrification of homes, businesses and transportation and the computing centers that house the physical foundation for all things digital. The Minneapolis-based company has also made it clear that it expects a substantial portion of the growth in its data-center customers to be in Colorado.

To prepare, White said the PUC has “been looking at data centers for a while now and watching how other states are handling these.”

Colorado lawmakers are considering bills on data centers: one to and one to

A third measure, sponsored by Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Ken DeGraaf, would allow such large-load customers as data centers to build or provide their own power source. Under , the power provider wouldn’t be regulated by the PUC but would have to meet local, state and federal regulations.

The PUC’s decision on Xcel’s plan for more power sources contained the agency’s first set of guidelines for data centers. The commission endorsed such provisions as requiring potential large customers to sign service and interconnection agreements before they’re included in a utility’s load forecast; minimum-term contracts; and exit fees if the customer ends its service before the end of the contract.

“The question for the commission was do you build for what you think that demand might be and allow Xcel to move forward with that sort of frame or do you say we will build it when we know you’re coming,” White said. “They landed more on the latter.”

Erin O’Neill, the PUC’s deputy director of fixed utilities, said there are “That is very much what we’re trying to avoid here.”

The proceedings on rates for large customers will consider, among other questions, what portion of the costs should be allocated to them, based on their characteristics and the risks or benefits they bring to the system, O’Neill said.

that required a new classification for high-use customers. the nation’s data center hot spot, is considering legislation to shift more of the cost of service to the large computing centers.

“The commission is just being very cautious and taking the time to make sure that we are doing this right and creating those protections, allocating those costs correctly,” O’Neill said.

Some data center developers are “doing a lot of shopping around,” figuring out which states offer the best financial benefits, she added. “That’s just business. They’re very large loads.”

During hearings on Xcel’s plan for new power, some parties in the case pointed out that the company had seen requests from large users, such as data centers, withdrawn during the proceedings.

One of those parties, Western Resource Advocates, is concerned about data centers’ impacts on ratepayers. The filing on rates for large-load customers “is absolutely a critical proceeding” in exploring protections for customers, said Clare Valentine, a senior policy adviser at WRA.

The PUC took a good first step by directing Xcel to plan for growth of large-load users only if the businesses make reasonable commitments, Valentine said. She said other policies to consider are data centers’ share of the expense for new distribution and transmission facilities and their effect on the state’s ability to meet its goals for using clean energy.

White said the PUC will look at the risks and opportunities of new and larger data centers in Colorado. She said higher loads can spread costs over a larger amount of electric sales and reduce the average rates for existing customers.

Another potential opportunity is incorporating more renewable energy on the system, White said. Wind power is often curtailed at night, when the wind blows more, because the demand isn’t as high. But data centers use electricity around the clock.

The centers could help jump-start emerging technologies such as geothermal energy, White said. Under what’s called , large customers pay a premium for power from new technologies.

“But these benefits will not materialize without proper, detailed planning and oversight and guardrails for existing customers,” she said.

The museum formally removed the object from its collection in September and returned it to the Turkish government in December, DAM officials told The Denver Post.

The object originated from a basilica in the ancient city of Smyrna — now known as İzmir — on the Aegean coast. The conducted excavations at the site in the 1930s and early 1940s, with the marble head dug up in 1934 and published in scholarly sources.

Then the relic went missing for decades.

The Denver Art Museum acquired the piece as a gift in 1989 from the estate of Marie Thérèse Macy, the wife of a former U.S. foreign service officer who served as consul general in Istanbul in the 1940s. It remained on long-term loan until the museum in 2005 formally added it to its collection.

In 2013, Denver museum officials say, they first reached out to the Izmir Museum, letting them know they had the marble head and requesting information about whether it had once been part of the Turkish institution’s collection.

Nothing happened until last year when Turkish cultural authorities confirmed that the marble head was missing from its national collections and submitted an official request for its return. Months later, it was back in Turkish hands.

“The marble head’s repatriation stands as an example of how museums can responsibly address complex histories and strengthen relationships with source communities and nations,” Andy Sinclair, a Denver Art Museum spokesperson, said in an email.

The repatriation comes amid a renewed push by Turkish authorities to reclaim their plundered cultural history.

The country, which boasts more than 20 , received 180 cultural artifacts last year, adding to the more than 13,000 relics it has repatriated over the past 23 years, according to .

Turkish officials developed a to identify cultural assets of Turkish origin on sales platforms, auctions and social media.

The country has also worked with American law enforcement to retrieve looted works. In December, the in New York, which boasts a specialized antiquities trafficking unit, , valued at more than $2.5 million.

Looters for decades targeted the ancient city of Bubon, a Roman site in southwestern Turkey. Many of these pieces fetched .

In recent years, the Denver Art Museum has sought to rehabilitate its reputation after scandals involving the collection of looted artworks.

The Post, in a three-part investigation in 2022, found a longtime museum consultant and art scholar, Emma C. Bunker, helped the DAM acquire a host of antiquities that had been pillaged from ancient temples in Southeast Asia. Her relationship to one disgraced dealer in particular, Douglas Latchford, allowed the museum to become a way station for plundered works, The Post found.

In 2023, the ���ܲ���ܳ���removed Bunker’s name from its gallery wall and returned a six-figure donation to her family. DAM has also returned pieces connected to Bunker to Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.

Denver museum officials have also come under fire for their dealings with Native American tribes and source countries.