For decades, Colorado has been an incubator of high-tech and aerospace ingenuity. Unfortunately, the state’s revised reputation for smothering innovation is spreading.

The Colorado Chamber of Commerce found that 98 companies left Colorado or decided against moving here, many in high-tech industries.

Now, a Colorado-based innovator on the cutting edge of supersonic passenger travel could join the business exodus — taking with it technology that could resolve data center fears and unleash Colorado’s leadership in AI and quantum computing.

Boom Supersonic was founded in Denver in 2014. Its CEO, Blake Scholl, says “supersonic tech can fix” the problem of data centers’ substantial need for electricity.

As The Gazette reports, Scholl’s company has begun adapting its Symphony jet-engine technology meant for supersonic flight to power next-generation mini-turbines that generate on-site electricity for AI data centers.

The company calls it “Superpower” — a 42-megawatt natural gas turbine packed into a 40-foot shipping container-sized structure and generating “reliable” electricity, so data centers don’t have to use or drain the electrical grid.

The system maintains full capacity in extreme heat and requires no water. It will even generate enough electricity to sell some back to the grid.

The powerful Superpower turbine operates on clean natural gas and incorporates state-of-the-art technology to limit emissions while operating quietly — addressing even more concerns about data centers.

Think of it as a supersonic engine ready to power the AI revolution right here in Colorado.

Yet, many Colorado policymakers are choosing regulation over innovation.

Scholl put it pointedly: “We find it troubling that Colorado is taking actions that will drive innovation and jobs into other states.”

He blasted Colorado’s expanding regulations, telling The Gazette that Senate Bill 24-205, enacted a couple of years ago, is “the worst AI bill in the country” and “would have made valuable uses of artificial intelligence illegal — and wrapped innovators in red tape.”

This year, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 26-189, a Band-Aid measure to replace SB 205 on statute books. Scholl labeled it “an improvement,” but noted, “none of these AI regulations serve Colorado’s innovation economy.”

Instead, Scholl cautioned, they’ll “drive investment and jobs elsewhere” — including, perhaps, his own company.

“North Carolina would love to have us,” Scholl told The Wall Street Journal. “Texas would love to have us. We might leave.”

Daniel Ryley, vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., said the blanket 12-month data center moratorium passed recently by Denver City Hall may be well-intentioned — but warned it “sets a troubling precedent for how Denver engages with the local and global business community.”

Are Colorado’s leaders listening? Or are they going to continue dragging their feet on data centers and giving into fears that could be addressed by advances like “Superpower?”

So far, it’s Door #2. The lawmaking luddites at Colorado’s State Capitol and city halls can’t get over thinking they know better than innovators.

The misguided, ham-handed regulations and moratoriums they’re slapping on AI and data centers undermine much of Colorado’s considerable potential, including its formidable aerospace economy.

In Boom Supersonic, Colorado has a world-class aerospace innovator developing technology that advances supersonic travel and meets AI power needs.

Scholl is a longtime Colorado creator who wants to keep creating here. His warning is a clarion call.

Will we empower innovators like him to do just that — or let them hightail it out of Colorado, taking more AI and aerospace innovation with them?