Data centers will change New Mexico for the better

Officials across New Mexico are considering moratoriums on new data-center development as local debates intensify over the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure.

This would be a mistake. Data centers can innovate New Mexico’s economy and reverse the state’s reputation as a bad place to do business. And from that, New Mexico will feel ripple effects. We will have new jobs, new education opportunities, and new economic benefits.

Consider Meta's Los Lunas campus near Albuquerque. Workers there earn salaries well above the local median wage. 

Or how about Project Jupiter in Doña Ana County, which is expected to create 4,000 construction jobs and bring 1,500 ongoing project supported jobs. OpenAI, Oracle, and other technology partners behind the project will hire local. The same goes for many other AI-related projects throughout the state.

Los Lunas, where Meta operates a major data center campus, is described as “one of the most consequential technology infrastructure investments in the American Southwest.” According to one estimate, its data center “has catalyzed more than $2.5 billion in direct investment, attracted a constellation of industrial and logistics tenants, and transformed a sleepy Valencia County community into a node in the global AI infrastructure grid.”

The economic benefits include $145 million in tax revenue and 15 percent population growth. The data center also delivered infrastructure investment that would have required decades through conventional municipal financing. 

And new economic development opportunities, especially of this magnitude, generate other economic development opportunities. 

Data centers generate more tax revenues for schools, infrastructure and other public services. They also support local suppliers, equipment vendors, restaurants, hospitality workers, transportation providers and people involved in other professional services. 

There are also environmental benefits. 

At Los Lunas, for instance, Meta innovates by improving upon existing industry standards to cool its facility using technology that’s more water efficient. New Mexico residents can study those new efficiencies and apply them to their own businesses. 

The skills that these data centers are teaching our state’s workers are setting up for a lifetime of employment security. Today, a lack of demand for high-skilled jobs causes much of New Mexico’s workforce to leave the state. These data centers are helping to slow, and potentially reverse, the state's longstanding brain drain.

One of the best examples is in quantum computing, which solves certain problems dramatically faster than traditional computers. Companies like Quantinuum are actively training New Mexico workers for a new quantum research and development center, all while New Mexico’s universities and community colleges are aggressively rolling out quantum training programs. 

These are precisely the kinds of advanced technical skills that will define the economy of the future and New Mexico is getting a significant head start. The state is poised to reap all the first-mover advantage benefits that come with being one an early adopter. 

New Mexico’s business reputation has suffered in recent years. Per CNBC, the state currently clocks in as the sixth worst state in the nation to do business. 

If we embrace these data centers, all of this could change. State officials might one day tout The Land of Enchantment as a national hub for manufacturing, e-commerce, and other tech-enabled services.

Isn’t that what we want for our friends, neighbors and children?

When the economy takes another downturn, New Mexico can and will sustain it if it has this infrastructure in place.

Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah are aggressively competing for these data centers. New Mexico can choose to compete as well, or it can impose moratoriums that send those jobs, tax revenues, and educational opportunities elsewhere. The choice should be obvious.

Let’s not lose out.

Debbi Moore is Executive Director of the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce. Kevin Merhege serves on the Board of Directors of the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce.