City Data Center Zoning Violates Local Tech Company’s Right to Compute
MISSOULA, Mont. – Today, Frontier Institute announced a new lawsuit challenging the City of Missoula’s zoning for data centers, arguing the regulations violate a local tech business’s Right to Compute, which is protected by Montana law. Attorneys from Arizona’s Goldwater Institute are representing local company CubCloud AI against the City in the lawsuit, made possible through Frontier and Goldwater’s joint Big Sky Legal Project. The lawsuit, Rhines v. City of Missoula, was filed in Fourth Judicial District Court in Missoula County on November 4th.
“While aimed at big tech, the City of Missoula’s onerous data center zoning harms little tech the most, in this case outlawing the growth of an upstanding local small business,” said Kendall Cotton, President and CEO of Frontier Institute. “We’re grateful to Goldwater Institute for stepping in to help defend CubCloud AI’s Right to Compute and enforce Montana’s Right to Compute Act.”
CubCloud AI is an 18-employee Missoula tech company providing AI and cloud computing infrastructure to local businesses, ranging from neighborhood fitness centers and insurance agencies to telecommunications providers. CubCloud was founded by local entrepreneur Joshua Rhines, a Missoula native and 4th Generation Montanan, and dedicates 15% of its profits directly to local charity. It operates a small data center on less than 850 sq ft of a facility it owns located in an industrial area between the interstate highway and the Missoula International Airport.
On October 5th, the City of Missoula adopted an ordinance changing how it zones for data centers, blocking new computing facilities of any size throughout the city if they would be used to lease storage and processing to third parties or housed in a separate stand-alone structure. The changes make it impossible for CubCloud AI to grow its operations or provide certain services in Missoula, no matter how quiet or unobtrusive their facilities might be.
The lawsuit argues the City’s new data center zoning violates Montana’s Right to Compute Act.
“The City’s new ordinance targets data centers because it considers them the wrong type of business. The fact that the ordinance’s blanket restrictions sweep in CubCloud shows they are not narrowly tailored toward protecting the public from excessive noise, light, pollution etc., as the Right to Compute Act requires,” said Dave Roland, Director of Allied Litigation at Goldwater Institute. “A victory in this case will affirm that free expression and property rights apply just as vigorously to modern digital infrastructure as they do to printing presses and traditional brick-and-mortar commerce.”
The Right to Compute Act is a first-of-its-kind law passed by the Montana legislature in 2025 protecting Montanans’ right to own and use computers as extensions of fundamental constitutional rights to property and free expression. The Right to Compute Act is a model developed and championed by Montana’s Frontier Institute.
Rhines v. City of Missoula may become the first lawsuit in the nation where a court will interpret and apply a statutory Right to Compute, setting a powerful precedent for other states looking to protect technological innovation and economic freedom.