Latest news with #Cheyenne
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Video compilation misrepresents old, unrelated clips as Wyoming hailstorm
A video compilation shared across platforms purports to show hailstones pelting the US state of Wyoming as a powerful storm pummeled Cheyenne on August 1, 2025. While reports indicated that the city experienced large hail, the clips spreading online are old and unrelated, with many filmed years earlier in Australia and other locations. "August 1, 2025 Baseball size hail hammers south side of Cheyenne, WY," says text over an August 3, 2025 TikTok video viewed more than 3.5 million times. Similar posts spread in English and Spanish and across TikTok and other platforms, including Facebook and X, with some users invoking conspiracy theories about weather modification. "This isn't 'just weather' anymore..." says one post on X. "#WeWantAnswers." The posts follow extreme weather in Cheyenne that, according to local news outlets and the National Weather Service (NWS), included severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. NWS local storm reports say the city saw hail as big as tennis balls (archived here). But the dramatic video footage in the compilation is unrelated to the August 1 hailstorm. AFP could not verify the origin of two of the 14 clips in the montage. But the other 12 are all outdated and recorded outside Wyoming, AFP determined using reverse image searches, keyword searches and geolocation. Arkansas, June 2023 The compilation's first video traces to a hailstorm that hit Lake Hamilton, a census-designated place in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in June 2023. The footage appeared in local news reports and on the video-licensing website ViralHog (archived here and here). Germany, August 2023 The second video, of hail damaging a Tesla, originated on TikTok. The owner of the vehicle posted it in August 2023 alongside other footage of the car (archived here and here). The original video is geotagged to the German state of Bavaria, and the license plate begins with TÖL, the code for the town of Bad Tölz. A sign visible in another video of the Tesla appears to advertise a pet-supply company located in the same district. Texas, April 2023 The third clip, which shows a bull trotting as hail splashes into a pool in front of him, dates to April 2023 and was filmed in Dublin, Texas (archived here and here). Homeowner Gary Clayton told local media the animal was seeking shelter under trees. AFP confirmed the location using Google Earth satellite imagery. Australia, January 2020 The compilation's fourth video is an inverted version of a recording showing workers at the National Gallery of Australia taking cover from a January 2020 hailstorm in Parkes, a town in New South Wales. The footage was originally posted to Facebook -- where its visibility has since been restricted -- and published by the video-licensing agency Storyful (archived here). AFP geolocated the footage to the art museum, where umbrellas, tables and a water fountain in the video match Google Street View imagery from the site (archived here). Australia, October 2020 The fifth video from the mashup is a flipped version of footage captured as hail rained down on Springfield Lakes, a suburb in Queensland, Australia. It is featured in a highlight reel of hailstorms on the YouTube channel called "Severe Weather Australia" (archived here). A caption on the original video, which shows the same kiddie pool and hose, says the incident took place in October 2020 (archived here). Missouri, March 2025 The sixth recording, of hail piling onto a balcony, inverts and misappropriates a video posted in March by a TikTok user who said it was filmed in St. Louis, Missouri (archived here). "This is what I get for visiting Missouri," the user wrote. Minnesota, July 2023 The eighth clip in the compilation, which is also inverted, shows a hailstorm over a lake in Deer River, Minnesota. Storyful and the Weather Channel both published the footage, dating it to July 2023 (archived here and here). Australia, November 2019 The ninth clip, of ice chunks pounding a pool deck, also appears in the YouTube montage of hailstorm videos from "Severe Weather Australia" (archived here). A text overlay places the footage in Palmview, a locality in Queensland, in November 2019. Australia, December 2017 The tenth video is similarly lifted from the "Severe Weather Australia," which published it to Facebook in December 2017 and later included it as part of its Australian hailstorms compilation on YouTube (archived here and here). The Facebook post says the footage was captured in Oakley, another town in Queensland. Arkansas, June 2023 The 11th visual being misrepresented online, which shows frozen rain smacking against the hood of a truck, was first posted to TikTok in June 2023 (archived here). A hashtag on the TikTok post says it took place in Arkansas. An article about the video on GM Authority, a website for General Motors fans, further specifies that the location was Hot Springs (archived here). Calgary, August 2024 The 13th clip in the compilation has been online since August 2024, when a TikTok user shared it in connection with a hailstorm in Calgary, a city in Alberta, Canada (archived here). Texas, May 2020 The 14th shot is an inverted version of footage uploaded to to a storm-chasing YouTube channel in May 2020 (archived here). The caption says a thunderstorm produced large hail near Quanah, Texas, along Oklahoma Highway 6 north of the Red River. A search of the area on Google Street View uncovered what appears to be a matching street sign (archived here). AFP has debunked other misinformation about weather here.
The Independent
29-07-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Cheyenne to host massive AI data center using more electricity than all Wyoming homes combined
An artificial intelligence data center that would use more electricity than every home in Wyoming combined before expanding to as much as five times that size will be built soon near Cheyenne, according to the city's mayor. 'It's a game changer. It's huge,' Mayor Patrick Collins said Monday. With cool weather — good for keeping computer temperatures down — and an abundance of inexpensive electricity from a top energy-producing state, Wyoming's capital has become a hub of computing power. The city has been home to Microsoft data centers since 2012. An $800 million data center announced last year by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms is nearing completion, Collins said. The latest data center, a joint effort between regional energy infrastructure company Tallgrass and AI data center developer Crusoe, would begin at 1.8 gigawatts of electricity and be scalable to 10 gigawatts, according to a joint company statement. A gigawatt can power as many as 1 million homes. But that's more homes than Wyoming has people. The least populated state, Wyoming, has about 590,000 people. And it's a major exporter of energy. A top producer of coal, oil and gas, Wyoming ranks behind only Texas, New Mexico and Pennsylvania as a top net energy-producing state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accounting for fossil fuels, Wyoming produces about 12 times more energy than it consumes. The state exports almost three-fifths of the electricity it produces, according to the EIA. But this proposed data center is so big, it would have its own dedicated energy from gas generation and renewable sources, according to Collins and company officials. Gov. Mark Gordon praised the project's value to the state's gas industry. 'This is exciting news for Wyoming and for Wyoming natural gas producers," Gordon said in the statement. While data centers are energy-hungry, experts say companies can help reduce their effect on the climate by powering them with renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Even so, electricity customers might see their bills increase as utilities plan for massive data projects on the grid. The data center would be built several miles (kilometers) south of Cheyenne off U.S. 85 near the Colorado state line. State and local regulators would need to sign off on the project, but Collins was optimistic construction could begin soon. "I believe their plans are to go sooner rather than later,' Collins said. OpenAI, the developer of Chat GPT, has been scouring the U.S. for sites for a massive AI data center effort called Stargate, but a Crusoe spokesperson declined to say if the Cheyenne project was one. 'We are not at a stage that we are ready to announce our tenant there,' said the spokesperson, Andrew Schmitt. 'I can't confirm or deny that is going to be one of the stargate." Recently, OpenAI announced it had switched on the first phase of a Crusoe-built data center complex in Abilene, Texas, in a partnership with software giant Oracle. 'To the best of our knowledge, it is the largest data center — we think of it as a campus — in the world,' OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told The Associated Press last week. 'It generates, roughly and depending how you count, about a gigawatt of energy.' OpenAI has also been looking elsewhere in the U.S. to expand its data centers. It said last week that it has entered into an agreement with Oracle to develop another 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity. 'We're now in a position where we have, in a really concrete way, identified over five gigawatts of energy that we're going to be able to build around,' Lehane said. OpenAI hasn't named any locations, besides its flagship site in Texas, where it plans to build data centers. As of earlier this year, Wyoming was not one of the 16 states where OpenAI said it was looking for locations to build new data centers. ___ O'Brien reported from Austin, Texas.
Yahoo
28-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cheyenne to host massive AI data center using more electricity than all Wyoming homes combined
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — An artificial intelligence data center that would use more electricity than every home in Wyoming combined before expanding to as much as five times that size will be built soon near Cheyenne, according to the city's mayor. 'It's a game changer. It's huge,' Mayor Patrick Collins said Monday. With cool weather — good for keeping computer temperatures down — and an abundance of inexpensive electricity from a top energy-producing state, Wyoming's capital has become a hub of computing power. The city has been home to Microsoft data centers since 2012. An $800 million data center announced last year by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms is nearing completion, Collins said. The latest data center, a joint effort between regional energy infrastructure company Tallgrass and AI data center developer Crusoe, would begin at 1.8 gigawatts of electricity and be scalable to 10 gigawatts, according to a joint company statement. A gigawatt can power as many as 1 million homes. But that's more homes than Wyoming has people. The least populated state, Wyoming, has about 590,000 people. And it's a major exporter of energy. A top producer of coal, oil and gas, Wyoming ranks behind only Texas, New Mexico and Pennsylvania as a top net energy-producing state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accounting for fossil fuels, Wyoming produces about 12 times more energy than it consumes. The state exports almost three-fifths of the electricity it produces, according to the EIA. But this proposed data center is so big, it would have its own dedicated energy from gas generation and renewable sources, according to Collins and company officials. Gov. Mark Gordon praised the project's value to the state's gas industry. 'This is exciting news for Wyoming and for Wyoming natural gas producers," Gordon said in the statement. While data centers are energy-hungry, experts say companies can help reduce their effect on the climate by powering them with renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Even so, electricity customers might see their bills increase as utilities plan for massive data projects on the grid. The data center would be built several miles (kilometers) south of Cheyenne off U.S. 85 near the Colorado state line. State and local regulators would need to sign off on the project, but Collins was optimistic construction could begin soon. "I believe their plans are to go sooner rather than later,' Collins said. OpenAI, the developer of Chat GPT, has been scouring the U.S. for sites for a massive AI data center effort called Stargate, but a Crusoe spokesperson declined to say if the Cheyenne project was one. 'We are not at a stage that we are ready to announce our tenant there,' said the spokesperson, Andrew Schmitt. 'I can't confirm or deny that is going to be one of the stargate." Recently, OpenAI announced it had switched on the first phase of a Crusoe-built data center complex in Abilene, Texas, in a partnership with software giant Oracle. 'To the best of our knowledge, it is the largest data center — we think of it as a campus — in the world,' OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told The Associated Press last week. 'It generates, roughly and depending how you count, about a gigawatt of energy.' OpenAI has also been looking elsewhere in the U.S. to expand its data centers. It said last week that it has entered into an agreement with Oracle to develop another 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity. 'We're now in a position where we have, in a really concrete way, identified over five gigawatts of energy that we're going to be able to build around,' Lehane said. OpenAI hasn't named any locations, besides its flagship site in Texas, where it plans to build data centers. As of earlier this year, Wyoming was not one of the 16 states where OpenAI said it was looking for locations to build new data centers. ___ O'Brien reported from Austin, Texas. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
28-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cheyenne to host massive AI data center using more electricity than all Wyoming homes combined
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — An artificial intelligence data center that would use more electricity than every home in Wyoming combined before expanding to as much as five times that size will be built soon near Cheyenne, according to the city's mayor. 'It's a game changer. It's huge,' Mayor Patrick Collins said Monday. With cool weather — good for keeping computer temperatures down — and an abundance of inexpensive electricity from a top energy-producing state, Wyoming's capital has become a hub of computing power. The city has been home to Microsoft data centers since 2012. An $800 million data center announced last year by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms is nearing completion, Collins said. The latest data center, a joint effort between regional energy infrastructure company Tallgrass and AI data center developer Crusoe, would begin at 1.8 gigawatts of electricity and be scalable to 10 gigawatts, according to a joint company statement. A gigawatt can power as many as 1 million homes. But that's more homes than Wyoming has people. The least populated state, Wyoming, has about 590,000 people. And it's a major exporter of energy. A top producer of coal, oil and gas, Wyoming ranks behind only Texas, New Mexico and Pennsylvania as a top net energy-producing state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accounting for fossil fuels, Wyoming produces about 12 times more energy than it consumes. The state exports almost three-fifths of the electricity it produces, according to the EIA. But this proposed data center is so big, it would have its own dedicated energy from gas generation and renewable sources, according to Collins and company officials. Gov. Mark Gordon praised the project's value to the state's gas industry. 'This is exciting news for Wyoming and for Wyoming natural gas producers," Gordon said in the statement. While data centers are energy-hungry, experts say companies can help reduce their effect on the climate by powering them with renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Even so, electricity customers might see their bills increase as utilities plan for massive data projects on the grid. The data center would be built several miles (kilometers) south of Cheyenne off U.S. 85 near the Colorado state line. State and local regulators would need to sign off on the project, but Collins was optimistic construction could begin soon. "I believe their plans are to go sooner rather than later,' Collins said. OpenAI, the developer of Chat GPT, has been scouring the U.S. for sites for a massive AI data center effort called Stargate, but a Crusoe spokesperson declined to say if the Cheyenne project was one. 'We are not at a stage that we are ready to announce our tenant there,' said the spokesperson, Andrew Schmitt. 'I can't confirm or deny that is going to be one of the stargate." Recently, OpenAI announced it had switched on the first phase of a Crusoe-built data center complex in Abilene, Texas, in a partnership with software giant Oracle. 'To the best of our knowledge, it is the largest data center — we think of it as a campus — in the world,' OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told The Associated Press last week. 'It generates, roughly and depending how you count, about a gigawatt of energy.' OpenAI has also been looking elsewhere in the U.S. to expand its data centers. It said last week that it has entered into an agreement with Oracle to develop another 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity. 'We're now in a position where we have, in a really concrete way, identified over five gigawatts of energy that we're going to be able to build around,' Lehane said. OpenAI hasn't named any locations, besides its flagship site in Texas, where it plans to build data centers. As of earlier this year, Wyoming was not one of the 16 states where OpenAI said it was looking for locations to build new data centers. ___ O'Brien reported from Austin, Texas. Mead Gruver And Matt O'brien, The Associated Press
Associated Press
28-07-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Cheyenne to host massive AI data center using more electricity than all Wyoming homes combined
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — An artificial intelligence data center that would use more electricity than every home in Wyoming combined before expanding to as much as five times that size will be built soon near Cheyenne, according to the city's mayor. 'It's a game changer. It's huge,' Mayor Patrick Collins said Monday. With cool weather — good for keeping computer temperatures down — and an abundance of inexpensive electricity from a top energy-producing state, Wyoming's capital has become a hub of computing power. The city has been home to Microsoft data centers since 2012. An $800 million data center announced last year by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms is nearing completion, Collins said. The latest data center, a joint effort between regional energy infrastructure company Tallgrass and AI data center developer Crusoe, would begin at 1.8 gigawatts of electricity and be scalable to 10 gigawatts, according to a joint company statement. A gigawatt can power as many as 1 million homes. But that's more homes than Wyoming has people. The least populated state, Wyoming, has about 590,000 people. And it's a major exporter of energy. A top producer of coal, oil and gas, Wyoming ranks behind only Texas, New Mexico and Pennsylvania as a top net energy-producing state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accounting for fossil fuels, Wyoming produces about 12 times more energy than it consumes. The state exports almost three-fifths of the electricity it produces, according to the EIA. But this proposed data center is so big, it would have its own dedicated energy from gas generation and renewable sources, according to Collins and company officials. Gov. Mark Gordon praised the project's value to the state's gas industry. 'This is exciting news for Wyoming and for Wyoming natural gas producers,' Gordon said in the statement. While data centers are energy-hungry, experts say companies can help reduce their effect on the climate by powering them with renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Even so, electricity customers might see their bills increase as utilities plan for massive data projects on the grid. The data center would be built several miles (kilometers) south of Cheyenne off U.S. 85 near the Colorado state line. State and local regulators would need to sign off on the project, but Collins was optimistic construction could begin soon. 'I believe their plans are to go sooner rather than later,' Collins said. OpenAI, the developer of Chat GPT, has been scouring the U.S. for sites for a massive AI data center effort called Stargate, but a Crusoe spokesperson declined to say if the Cheyenne project was one. 'We are not at a stage that we are ready to announce our tenant there,' said the spokesperson, Andrew Schmitt. 'I can't confirm or deny that is going to be one of the stargate.' Recently, OpenAI announced it had switched on the first phase of a Crusoe-built data center complex in Abilene, Texas, in a partnership with software giant Oracle. 'To the best of our knowledge, it is the largest data center — we think of it as a campus — in the world,' OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told The Associated Press last week. 'It generates, roughly and depending how you count, about a gigawatt of energy.' OpenAI has also been looking elsewhere in the U.S. to expand its data centers. It said last week that it has entered into an agreement with Oracle to develop another 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity. 'We're now in a position where we have, in a really concrete way, identified over five gigawatts of energy that we're going to be able to build around,' Lehane said. OpenAI hasn't named any locations, besides its flagship site in Texas, where it plans to build data centers. As of earlier this year, Wyoming was not one of the 16 states where OpenAI said it was looking for locations to build new data centers. ___ O'Brien reported from Austin, Texas.
