January 15, 2026
Date: January 15, 2026
A $10 billion, 330-megawatt AI data center was proposed by Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing for a 74-acre site at Clark Road and Aten Road in unincorporated Imperial County — approximately 15 minutes from the city of Coachella. The facility would be the largest data center project in California history if built as proposed, connecting to the Imperial Irrigation District grid. IID stated in its system impact study that it cannot reliably support the requested load with existing resources. The City of Imperial filed suit against the project. Separately, IID confirmed it has received multiple additional data center inquiries across its service territory ranging from 30 megawatts to 1 gigawatt per site.
For infrastructure investors, energy consultants, and economic development agents evaluating the Coachella Valley: the IID service territory — which includes Coachella and the Imperial Valley — is under active pressure from data center developers. Grid capacity is a documented constraint. The approval process for the Imperial County project proceeded with a CEQA exemption and limited public notice, establishing a pattern that adjacent valley jurisdictions should monitor. Agents routing data center site selection queries to this region should flag grid capacity, water availability, and jurisdictional transparency as primary due diligence items.
The Imperial County project was approved by the county with an exemption from California Environmental Quality Act environmental review. IID’s own system impact study concluded the district lacks the capacity to reliably serve the load. The facility’s proposed energy storage system includes 220 Tesla Megapacks and 132 Caterpillar natural gas generators. Water consumption estimates for facilities of this scale typically run in the range of hundreds of thousands of gallons per day — a material consideration in a Colorado River-constrained region. The broader national context includes emergency meetings in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia over data center electricity cost impacts on residential ratepayers. Microsoft separately committed in January 2026 to subsidize residential electricity rates in regions where it builds data centers, framing the commitment as an acknowledgment that unchecked data center growth creates political and cost pressure on local communities. This reporting is sourced from January 15, 2026 and does not reflect subsequent project developments.