This Month's Latest Tech News in Fort Collins, CO - Wednesday April 30th 2025 Edition

Fort Collins continues to solidify its reputation as Colorado's nexus for ethical AI and tech innovation this April, spurred by significant policy and research advancements.

The state's revised artificial intelligence law now emphasizes anti-discrimination while providing measured leeway for small businesses, reflecting broad efforts to balance technological progress and consumer protection by Colorado lawmakers.

Local institutions, especially Colorado State University, are driving equitable, AI-empowered climate solutions - using machine learning to enhance hurricane forecasting, satellite data utilization, and atmospheric simulations, as highlighted by inclusive leadership and faculty achievements in CSU's Atmospheric Science department news.

Meanwhile, Fort Collins-based businesses like New Belgium Brewing have set benchmarks in corporate responsibility by integrating AI and sustainability, exemplified in their use of carbon-neutral brewing and investments in social equity, earning national recognition for successful approaches to responsible tech and climate action among leading CSR brands.

As AI's integration into city planning and environmental strategies advances, Fort Collins is emerging as a model for transparent, ethical tech development across industry, policy, and academia.

“Social and environmental well-being are intricately intertwined.” - Katie Wallace, Director of CSR, New Belgium Brewing

The Platte River Power Authority (PRPA), in partnership with NextEra Energy Resources, is set to accelerate northern Colorado's clean energy transition with its first large-scale battery storage system, the Weld Energy Storage project.

Breaking ground in early 2026 and operational by late that year, the new facility will store up to 100 megawatts (MW) of power capable of discharging 400 megawatt-hours (MWh) over four hours, directly supporting PRPA's goal to deliver a 100% noncarbon energy mix for its owner communities - Fort Collins, Estes Park, Longmont, and Loveland.

The battery will be sited alongside the Black Hollow Solar project in Severance, seamlessly integrating with renewable generation via Platte River's newest substation and transmission system.

As detailed in the official announcement of PRPA's first large-scale battery energy storage system, this project is part of PRPA's three-pronged strategy that also includes deploying 5 MW of storage in each community and constructing a virtual power plant.

The battery initiative is one of several milestones tracked in PRPA's 2024 Annual Report on Platte River's clean energy transition.

As Anthony Pedroni, VP of Development at NextEra, notes,

“It will deliver vital reliability benefits to customers and the state of Colorado.”

For a local perspective on the project's regional impact and technical specs, visit North Forty News' coverage of the Weld Energy Storage project.

Below is a summary table outlining key project specifications:

Feature	Details
Storage Capacity	100 MW / 400 MWh (4-hour duration)
Operational Timeline	Late 2026
Location	Adjacent to Black Hollow Solar, Severance, CO
Ownership/Operation	Weld Energy Storage (NextEra subsidiary)
Integration	Direct connection to Platte River's transmission system

New Belgium Brewing, a pioneering Fort Collins brewery known for its commitment to sustainability, is setting a new regional standard by installing AtmosZero's cutting-edge Boiler 2.0 - a modular, industrial heat pump system designed to electrify steam production for beer fermentation, equipment cleaning, and beyond.

The collaboration makes New Belgium the first U.S. brewery to deploy this innovative technology at scale, enabling them to replace fossil-fuel-based steam boilers with a solution that more than doubles efficiency while slashing Scope 1 carbon emissions, paving the way toward the company's 2030 carbon-neutral goal.

AtmosZero's Boiler 2.0 capitalizes on ambient air, yielding up to 2x the efficiency of standard electric boilers and generating up to 997.9 kg/hr of saturated steam at high output temperatures - all while using half the electricity of traditional systems.

As Addison Stark, CEO and co-founder of AtmosZero, explains in a recent interview,

“We are laser focused on manufacturing a product that is modular, scalable and can be deployed today – not in decades.”

Backed by $21 million in recent Series A funding, along with substantial support from the U.S. Department of Energy, AtmosZero is ramping up local manufacturing to meet fast-growing industrial demand.

The table below summarizes key performance indicators for Boiler 2.0:

Feature	Value
Thermal Output	650 kW
Steam Output	997.9 kg/hr
Max Temperature	165°C (targeting 200°C by 2026)
Energy Efficiency	2x vs. traditional electric boilers
Scope 1 CO2 Emissions	Zero

This strategic move not only positions New Belgium at the forefront of Colorado's green manufacturing but also signals broader momentum, as detailed in Bloomberg's feature on brewery emissions, BBC's analysis of the business of green steam, and Craft Brewing Business's coverage of Boiler 2.0's regional debut.

Fort Collins continues to lead the way in ethical and innovative urban governance as AI-powered citizen assemblies shape the city's approach to land use and civic planning.

Local governments are leveraging advanced technologies like machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision to streamline transportation, enhance public safety, and optimize infrastructure, while citizen engagement is at the core of these initiatives.

A recent hackathon hosted by Colorado State University partnered students with the USDA and NASA to develop machine learning models for mapping uncharted roads and designing rover navigation algorithms - projects that directly enhance emergency response and public safety in the region (CSU Students Tackle Real-World AI Challenges with USDA and NASA).

Civic engagement is also thriving, with the Democracy Fellows and Ambassadors program at CSU empowering students to take on leadership roles in democratic initiatives, such as organizing the Fort Collins Civic Simulation and facilitating vital discussions on AI and local governance (Empowering Student Leadership through Democratic Engagement at CSU).

Philanthropic organizations like Bohemian Foundation are bolstering these efforts by supporting robust citizen participation and government accountability, underlining that

“liberty and equality… are chiefly to be found in democracy... when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost”

(Bohemian Foundation's Civic Programs).

Together, Fort Collins's dynamic integration of AI, community participation, and ethical governance models a promising future for smart, inclusive cities.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in daily life, a new survey finds that one in three Gen-Z men in Colorado are open to AI dating, a trend echoing themes from movies like Her but with real-world implications for relationships and technology.

While AI-driven companion apps and chatbots are gaining appeal for their ease of use - especially among younger users who sometimes find it less stressful to interact with digital partners - the rapid rise is met with mixed emotions and concerns about human connection.

Notably, 53% of Gen Z adults report feeling anxious about AI, even as 44% recognize they'll need to use it for future work and studies, according to recent Gallup survey data on Gen Z's relationship with AI.

The latest findings also show significant challenges in distinguishing between real and AI-generated dating profiles - 62% of people in a global survey failed to correctly identify AI-created profiles, a vulnerability particularly acute among both the very young and older users.

These statistics are summarized below:

Key Metric	Percentage
Gen-Z men in Colorado open to AI dating	33%
Gen Z adults feeling anxious about AI	53%
Users unable to spot AI dating profiles	62%

Matchmaking experts in Denver urge a balanced approach, warning that

“you can have two users who have these sort of virtual AI dating assistants… the two people are never actually interacting,”

and encouraging genuine offline connections instead (Denver7's coverage of AI and dating profiles).

As Fort Collins and Colorado at large continue shaping the intersection of technology and social life, the future of relationships may rely on both technological innovation and renewed attention to authentic human interaction.

Fort Collins-based author Vauhini Vara's new essay collection, Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, is sparking thoughtful discussion about how artificial intelligence is reshaping creative writing and community identity.

Vara, who interweaves memoir, technology critique, and experimental AI collaborations throughout her work, frames digital archives and Google searches as “the most comprehensive record of my life since 2005” - a personal and artistic attempt to reclaim agency from tech giants that monetize our data (Vauhini Vara's Discussions on AI and Creative Writing).

Central to the book is her acclaimed “Ghosts” essay, a deeply personal exploration of grief created as a duet with GPT-3, which she found both revealing and flawed: AI-generated prose sometimes produced moments of beauty but lacked the embodied experience essential to true storytelling.

As Vara notes,

“The machine generated falsehoods compelled me to assert my own consciousness by writing against the falsehoods”

(Insights Into How Vauhini Vara Wrote Searches).

Through staged interactions with ChatGPT, Vara explores the tension between AI's statistical language generation and literature's fundamentally human communication, underscoring how digital tools can flatten cultural specificity and nuance.

Her book's structure - alternating between traditional essays, experimental forms, and direct exchanges with AI - mirrors the push and pull between algorithmic sameness and authentic human voice, a dynamic especially relevant to Fort Collins's artistic community navigating technology's rapid advance.

For readers seeking an in-depth take on Searches and how it blurs boundaries between memoir, criticism, and creative innovation, Anna Wiener's review notes,

“Artificial intelligence had succeeded in moving me with a sentence about the most devastating experience of my life,”

while ultimately emphasizing that the

“most moving sections are the ones she wrote herself”

(Anna Wiener's Review of AI and Human Authorship).

Fort Collins is leading the way in civic technology by deploying innovative digital tools and inclusive processes that deepen democratic participation and bridge divides.

This April, the city invested $150,000 in a lottery-based Civic Assembly to deliberate the future of a major 163-acre land parcel, inviting a representative cohort of residents to shape public policy with the support of platforms like “Our City” and AI-enabled synthesis of over 1,100 community inputs, fostering both transparency and actionable consensus through digital civic engagement.

Local university leaders echoed the spirit of inclusion, with Colorado State University's Democracy Fellows advancing campus-wide events - from immersive civic simulations to student-led panels on tech and misinformation - highlighting the critical role of young leaders in sustaining democratic dialogue and empowering new voices in public life.

At a national level, Fort Collins was showcased in a New America panel as a beacon of the “deliberative democracy” movement, proven to reduce polarization and achieve common ground solutions:

“Assembly initiatives demonstrate that people are less divided than traditional political forums and media narratives suggest.”

As cities worldwide grapple with political polarization and technology-driven social change, Fort Collins's blend of AI-powered assemblies, open-source platforms, and grassroots leadership sets a model for cities seeking responsive and equitable democratic innovation.

For a look at how these assemblies are shaping Colorado's future, see insights from the Civic Assemblies in Action event.

On April 5, Fort Collins became a focal point of national dissent as thousands gathered at Civic Center Park for the “Hands Off!” rally, joining simultaneous demonstrations across more than 1,200 U.S. locations to protest federal actions impacting democracy, social programs, and personal rights - including the perceived military and surveillance risks posed by advanced AI technologies.

Many speakers, such as Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse, underscored how community activism is critical when democratic values and public ethics are at stake, while attendees decried funding cuts to scientific research and threats to data privacy that mirror broader concerns about unchecked AI deployment.

"Whole futures are being erased. Whole fields are being gutted, and for what? To keep the billionaire class in control while the rest of us are told to be quiet, be polite and stay in line? But we won't. The statement, ‘Hands Off,' is our refusal; hands off of our students, hands off of our science (and) hands off of our committees,"

declared Victoria Silva, a CSU biochemistry student.

Regional rallies amplified local worries about the intersection of tech and democracy, with protestors warning that government downsizing, algorithmic discrimination, and militarized AI systems threaten constitutional rights and the social contract.

For a full photo gallery from the Fort Collins march, see the Coloradoan's in-depth coverage of the Hands Off rally in Fort Collins.

Broader context on the nationwide “Hands Off!” movement and its roots in public resistance to AI-driven federal policies can be found in The Collegian's analysis of nationwide Hands Off protests, while the scope and key messages of this protest wave - including its ethical calls to action - are detailed by NPR's national report on the Hands Off movement.

The so-called "Magnificent Seven" AI stocks - Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms, and Tesla - have dominated tech investment headlines, yet started 2025 on a volatile note.

Influential tech conferences such as NVIDIA GTC 2025 conference on AI innovation continue to spotlight AI innovation, with industry leaders unveiling advancements in agentic AI, robotics, and quantum computing that fuel excitement, even as market turbulence persists.

Recent data shows all seven stocks underperformed in the first months of 2025, driven in part by rising costs from new tariffs and economic uncertainty. A closer look at quarterly performance illustrates the challenges:

Company Name	2025 Performance
Alphabet (GOOGL)	-18.5%
Amazon (AMZN)	-12.2%
Apple (AAPL)	-13.0%
Meta Platforms (META)	-1.5%
Microsoft (MSFT)	-10.1%
Nvidia (NVDA)	-18.3%
Tesla (TSLA)	-34.7%

Despite these setbacks, Fort Collins investors remain focused on long-term opportunities, especially as analysts note ongoing AI infrastructure spending and "buy the dip" potential in stalwart stocks like Microsoft and Meta.

As one analyst recently remarked,

“Tariff uncertainty is the black cloud overhang on the tech sector...semis and Apple in the eye of the Category 5 storm.”

For a deeper dive into which tech giants may rebound and drive AI trends throughout 2025, see this full performance analysis on the Magnificent Seven tech stocks performance report, plus sector insights from Wall Street's AI market outlook.

The rise of AI-generated news summaries is fueling robust debate about accuracy and public trust in media, with recent high-profile missteps underscoring the challenges.

Bloomberg News, after deploying AI to create article bullet-point “takeaways,” has issued corrections to at least three dozen summaries since January 2025 - errors including factual misstatements about major events like auto tariffs.

While a Bloomberg spokesperson emphasized,

“Journalists have full control over whether a summary appears - both before and after publication - and can remove any that don't meet our standards,”

several newsroom staff have questioned the practical ability to intercept every erroneous summary before it reaches readers according to the New York Times' coverage.

This situation is not isolated; The Los Angeles Times has faced similar AI-induced gaffes, and leading newsrooms nationwide are grappling with ethical dilemmas and transparency expectations.

As highlighted in a detailed opinion piece, the public's wariness remains: while 90% of Americans have heard of AI, only 30% can identify its specific use in journalism, and an overwhelming 93.8% of news consumers want full disclosure about AI's role in content creation according to The Red Line Project.

A snapshot of newsroom automation practices is shown below:

News Organization	AI Use	Human Oversight
Associated Press	80% AI automation	20% human editing
Washington Post	Generative AI for data-centric coverage	Editorial checks
Bloomberg	AI article summaries	Promised full editorial control*

As media organizations embrace these technologies, many stress the ongoing need for clear ethical standards and continual human judgment, warning that

“responsible AI use is essential for societal benefit”

per recent analysis on newsroom transparency.

Open-source AI tools are rapidly transforming civic engagement and digital democracy across the U.S., with forward-thinking initiatives leading the charge in cities and communities.

In 2025, New America's Technology and Democracy programs rolled out the RethinkAI pilot in three cities - including Fort Collins - emphasizing transparent data governance, ethical technology, and equity (Building Our Digital Future in 2025 and Beyond).

These efforts are complemented by projects like DIGI's My File, an open-source digital platform now live in New York City, which simplifies residents' access to public services.

Meanwhile, local governments nationwide are automating permitting, planning, and other municipal tasks through AI-powered tools, saving staff hours and enhancing participation for all stakeholders (GovTech reports highlight Dallas's new digital planning system and Salt Lake City's AI-driven efficiencies).

Code for America is further supporting this movement by scaling responsible AI engagement strategies and digital inclusion programs in government (expanding digital equity resources by Code for America).

As Lilian Coral of New America puts it,

“Incremental approaches - inclusive of open, accessible, and adaptable solutions - can prioritize the public interest while addressing structural and operational constraints.”

The collaborative landscape - spanning cities, nonprofits, and universities - underscores how open-source AI can foster trust, lower barriers to government participation, and lay the groundwork for a more inclusive digital democracy.

Fort Collins's trajectory in 2025 offers a compelling blueprint for responsible technology and ethical innovation, as it balances rapid advances with evolving regulatory frameworks.

Recent legislative debates around Colorado's sweeping anti-bias AI law highlight the city's role as a bellwether, with Senate Bill 318 proposing changes to Colorado's anti-bias AI law to loosen proactive monitoring mandates while retaining robust protections against algorithmic discrimination across employment, finance, and housing.

As the law shifts, exemptions for small businesses and a delayed rollout reflect local leaders' emphasis on practical, equitable adoption of AI systems, as detailed in recent coverage on Colorado's artificial intelligence law revisions.

Meanwhile, Fort Collins's tech community exemplifies inclusive, real-world impact: companies like OtterBox continue to innovate in consumer products, and the integration of responsible AI in policing,

“I'm absolutely stunned by the quality of the reports.” - Fort Collins PD

demonstrates how ethical frameworks guide sensitive technology deployments (see Axon's Responsible Innovation Framework for public safety technology).

As tech talent seeks both skills and opportunities, initiatives such as Nucamp's flexible bootcamps and industry-focused scholarships ensure local pathways into cybersecurity, software engineering, and web development remain widely accessible.

The city's approach - flexible legislation, public-private innovation, and broad upskilling - shows how Fort Collins is leading the way in harmonizing growth, ethics, and opportunity for the next generation of tech professionals.