There’s a massive, $1 billion data center being developed over 131 acres in North Texas. An even larger, 50,000-acre plot near Laredo is slated to host a data center. Out in West Texas, the $500 billion Stargate Project is probably the biggest tech project in the entire Lone Star State.
Tract, a data center developer out of Denver, announced May 7 that it had purchased a 1,515-acre parcel of land northwest of Lockhart in Caldwell County. Less than 6 miles from some of the most celebrated barbecue joints in Texas, Tract is looking to build out a center that supports more than 2 gigawatts (GW) of data.
“Tract appreciates the business-friendly environment that make Texas-scale projects attractive and the new relationships we have built in the community,” Tract Executive Chairman and Tract Capital Management CEO and Managing Partner Grant van Rooyen said in a statement.
At the proposed campus, which van Rooyen is referring to as a “megasite,” Tract will look to store data for cloud-based operations, inferencing and AI training applications.
“Perhaps most importantly, there is a workforce in place that can support the thousands of skilled construction and operations jobs that will be employed at this campus,” van Rooyen said.
Tract has multiple data centers already active or in the works, including operable sites in Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Virginia. The company is working to build out complexes in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina.
Gov. Greg Abbott, a staunch supporter of bringing in all kinds of tech businesses to Texas, backed Tract’s plans in a statement, and noted the data center should “create good-paying jobs, bolster the state’s power grid, and enhance our technology infrastructure.”
“We look forward to working with corporate partners like Tract to further expand Texas’ economic might and develop our state as the epicenter of technological advancement,” Abbott said.
Texas has been gobbling up data centers over the last few years. The centers, which house large amounts of data for computing and AI purposes, can be a strain on power grids, much like crypto mining facilities, which are only now being regulated over energy usage.
In January, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told the Texas Tribune in a statement that he felt Texas should be the “world leader in AI, data center and crypto. The key is to ensure they have the power they need without a major impact to our electrical grid. The industries understand that and they are working on solutions.”
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