SpaceX hosted a community town hall in Cochise County, Arizona, on Wednesday on a proposed supercompute campus with an estimated electrical demand of 6 gigawatts at full build-out, according to 13 News and a notice from the applicant, Tombstone Resources L.L.C., posted on Cochise County’s project page; the project figures come from the application. The application lists “on the order of $3.6 billion of applicant-funded transmission and substation improvements” in the county.
That is about $600,000 of grid upgrades per megawatt of planned demand, by our arithmetic. The special use application identifies Tombstone Resources L.L.C. as the applicant, and “the exact relationship between the two companies is unclear”, 13 News reported.
Business Pill · Grid Cost Allocation
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on who pays for new grid lines. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss SpaceX, Tombstone Resources or Cochise County.
The key insight: An application filed by Tombstone Resources L.L.C. in Cochise County proposes a 6 GW AI supercompute campus with about $3.6 billion of applicant-funded grid upgrades, which is about $600,000 per megawatt by our arithmetic; SpaceX hosted the town hall on it, per the applicant’s notice, and 13 News reported that the relationship between the two companies is unclear.
Cochise County Development Services has received a Special Use Authorization application (SU26-22) from Tombstone Resources L.L.C. for a proposed supercomputer and AI data center campus and battery energy storage system on approximately 747 acres along U.S. Highway 191 near Cochise, the county’s page says. According to information submitted by the applicant, it includes up to nine computing buildings in four phases, with an estimated electrical demand of 6 gigawatts at full build-out, the county says.
The application, dated 30 October 2026, puts Phase 1 at the first computing buildings of “approx. 1,500 MW”, with initial electric service for construction targeted for March 2027. That is 25% of the full build-out, by our arithmetic. The application says power would be “all delivered from the grid through SSVEC and AEPCO”, with natural-gas standby generators for critical services only, and lists a 24 GWh battery installation.
The campus would be dry-cooled with no cooling towers, the application says, putting operational water use at full build-out at “about 7 to 10 acre-feet per year”. Its summary lists 1,000 permanent jobs and 5,500 construction jobs. The county notes that the descriptions are “based on information provided by the applicant” and have not yet been independently verified or endorsed by the county.
Proposed Cochise County campus (application SU26-22, Tombstone Resources L.L.C.): Phase 1 of approx. 1,500 MW and approx. 6 GW at full build-out, per the applicant. 25% and $600,000 per MW are our arithmetic.
Where SpaceX Comes In
A town-hall notice on Tombstone Resources L.L.C. letterhead is posted by the county. It says “SpaceX will host a community town hall on Wednesday, November 4” to share information about the proposed supercompute project. 13 News reported that it reached out to SpaceX for an interview during the meeting, but a representative was not available for comment.
13 News wrote that the facility would require up to 6,000 megawatts at full build-out, “one of the largest proposed data center developments in the country by electricity demand”. Jason Bowling, CEO of Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative, told the station: “The concerns are valid, and the excitement is valid”. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to hold a formal public hearing on 9 December, 13 News said.
As we read the application, the applicant proposes to pay for the transmission and substation work itself: it lists the $3.6 billion as applicant-funded and the county page calls the figures applicant information not yet verified.
As we read the phasing, the first step is a quarter of the full plan: the application puts Phase 1 at approx. 1,500 MW against approx. 6 gigawatts at full build-out, 25% by our arithmetic.
13 News (KOLD), 5 November 2026
“The concerns are valid, and the excitement is valid”
Three Implications
FOR THE CO-OPS The application says power would be all delivered from the grid through SSVEC and AEPCO, with natural-gas standby generators for critical services only.
FOR WATER The application says the campus would be dry-cooled with no cooling towers, at about 7 to 10 acre-feet per year at full build-out.
FOR THE COUNTY The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to hold a formal public hearing on 9 December, 13 News reported.
The framework says: “But infrastructure reality is catching up with AI ambitions: a projected 19GW gap between new data center demand and available grid capacity threatens to deflate the AI bubble.”
As we read it, the framework is about the gap between data-center demand and grid capacity; this application proposes that the applicant fund about $3.6 billion of grid work for a 6 GW campus. The framework does not discuss SpaceX, Tombstone Resources or Cochise County.
What Is Not Established
The filings we read name Tombstone Resources L.L.C. as the applicant, not SpaceX, and 13 News said the relationship between the two is unclear. SpaceX was not available for comment, the station reported. No decision has been made on the proposed development. The county says the application materials have not been independently verified. We did not attend the meeting. The $600,000 per megawatt and 25% figures are our arithmetic.
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An application filed by Tombstone Resources L.L.C. in Cochise County proposes a 747-acre AI supercompute campus with an estimated 6 gigawatts of demand at full build-out and about $3.6 billion of applicant-funded grid improvements, and SpaceX hosted the town hall on it, per the applicant’s notice. A public hearing is scheduled for 9 December, 13 News reported.
A note on sourcing. The project details come from Cochise County’s Data Centers page and the application and applicant notice it posts (SU26-22, Tombstone Resources L.L.C.), which the county says are based on applicant information and not independently verified; the meeting details come from 13 News (KOLD). We did not attend the meeting. Per-megawatt and percentage figures are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
