⭐ Morning Briefing — October 12, 2026

(Covering Saturday, October 10 – Monday, October 12, 2026)

Top Story: A $15 billion, roughly 24,000-acre data center campus in Hudspeth County reached the county judge as a rumor. By local reporting, ground had already been broken before anyone from the project talked to county officials.

📰 Today's News

1. 🏜️ A $15 Billion Data Center Campus Turned Up in Hudspeth County Before Anyone Told the County

County Judge Joanna MacKenzie confirmed in a social media post, reported by KFOX14 on Saturday, that a $15 billion data center is being developed in the Desert Haven community, about 15 miles from Far East El Paso County. She said she checked out rumors by visiting the site Thursday and meeting contractors, and that project representatives apologized for not talking to the county or residents sooner.
KTSM, in a story Border Report ran this weekend, said Los Angeles-based Kaufman & Company is leading the project with several partners and broke ground Wednesday without notifying local authorities. The campus would put dome-shaped buildings on about 24,000 acres of private desert land. Partner ServerDomes, based in Boise, says the full build would reach 350 MW.
What the county has been told: water would come one time from an on-site well tied to an aquifer to fill a closed-loop cooling system with a water catchment system. The campus would make its own electricity rather than use local power, and it won't ask the county for tax abatements. MacKenzie said these are the developers' claims, not county findings, and that the county will ask for documentation.
The two outlets don't agree on timing. KFOX's account of MacKenzie's letter says construction could start as early as 2027 and take four to five years, with 800 construction jobs and 200 to 300 permanent ones. KTSM reports a groundbreaking has already happened. The developers have agreed to present at the Oct. 27 commissioners court meeting, and Texas counties have no zoning power over private land.

Today's Signal: Promises like a one-time water draw and self-made power are easy to make when the county has no way to make them conditions of approval. Generating 350 MW on site also means a power plant, and neither outlet says what it would burn or whether an air permit has been filed. That makes the Oct. 27 presentation the first real chance to ask.

2. 🗳️ Taylor Approves the 664-Acre Campus Over an Overflow Crowd's Objections

Taylor City Council voted unanimously Thursday night to approve an annexation and development agreement with Big Watt Digital and PowerHouse Data Centers for the 664-acre Taylor Technology Campus, KUT reported. The project includes data center buildings and an on-site power plant just outside city limits in unincorporated Williamson County.
Council members and staff argued that annexing the site gives the city power to regulate water use, noise and air quality there, which it couldn't do otherwise. CBS Austin reported Monday that the agreement requires closed-loop cooling using reclaimed water and sets noise limits and building setbacks.
The developers have committed about $28.2 million in community investments, more than $10 million of it for Taylor ISD. A study they paid for projects $1.38 billion in tax revenue for the city over 20 years and about 19,350 temporary construction jobs.
Residents objected that the deal was negotiated behind closed doors. In August, Taylor's planning and zoning commission had paused the developers' application for 90 days to consider data center rules first, and the developers withdrew it about two weeks later. One resident said the city should have kept the project's old name, Project Mustang, given how fast it moved.

Today's Signal: Taylor's argument was that annexation is leverage, since a city can regulate noise and air on land the county can't. But the commission that wanted to write general rules first got bypassed, so this site's limits are the ones the developers agreed to in a negotiated contract.

3. ⚠️ CNN Investigation Documents Threats Against Officials in Westlake, Bell County and El Paso

A CNN investigation published Monday found police across the country have investigated dozens of threats tied to data center fights, from bomb claims to calls for violence against local officials. Several of the cases are in Texas.
In August, after Westlake officials approved site plans for a large data center development, an online post called for shooting city council members, CNN reported.
In Bell County, authorities arrested a man accused of threatening officials in an online comment under a post about local data center construction. The comment referred to the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, and the case is still open.
El Paso police questioned at least three data center opponents, including a woman who wrote to the city council. She told investigators she only meant she wanted council members voted out.

Today's Signal: The threats are criminal and nobody in these fights should defend them. There's still a risk that officials respond by shrinking public comment, and limited public comment is a big part of what made residents in places like Westlake and Granbury angry to begin with.

4. 🎓 A Bankrupt Data Center at Texas A&M's RELLIS Campus Is Sold and Rebranded

Austin-based ThisWay Global bought the RELLIS Campus Data and Research Center out of bankruptcy for $40 million on Sept. 30, The Eagle reported this weekend. Founder Angela Hood is renaming it the Research and AI Compute Center and will offer research computing to RELLIS, Texas A&M and eligible public-sector and industry users.
Hood said the company is building and paying for all of its own power infrastructure while working with Bryan Texas Utilities. Cooling is a closed-loop liquid system with a glycol additive plus direct-to-chip cooling, which she said needs about 2% to 3% more water every three or four years.
The building under construction is a two-story, 45,500-square-foot facility, out of about 300,000 square feet planned in total. Hood is aiming to finish the first building in the second quarter of 2027 and the whole site by the end of 2028, with about 100 permanent employees. DempseyGill is overseeing construction.

Today's Signal: Hood said it "will no longer be called a data center." It will still house NVIDIA and AMD chips running on power the company builds itself. With state and local rules being written around the words "data center," expect more developers to describe themselves some other way.

5. ☢️ NRC Staff Recommend Licensing Fermi's Four Panhandle Reactors, and the 45-Day Comment Clock Is Running

The NRC's draft environmental impact statement for Fermi America's Project Matador recommends issuing combined licenses for four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, as long as the project passes its separate safety review. ANS Nuclear Newswire reported this Friday, and Interesting Engineering followed Sunday. Under a NEPA pilot program, Fermi wrote the draft and the NRC supervised, a first for the agency.
Public comments are open through Nov. 23 under docket NRC-2026-0100, and the NRC is aiming for a final statement in December. The campus plan has grown from 11 GW to about 17 GW. SEC filings say former CEO Toby Neugebauer was terminated for cause this spring.
Also from the NRC this weekend: on Oct. 8 it published notice of Blue Energy's first-phase construction permit application for a gas-to-nuclear plant at the Port of Victoria to power nearby data centers. The plan is five BWRX-300 reactors producing about 1.5 GW by 2032. The NRC's five commissioners will hold a public meeting at the Region IV office in Arlington on Oct. 15, 9 a.m. to noon.

Today's Signal: Fermi wrote the environmental review for its own project, and the 45-day comment period is the main formal way for the public to respond. The window closes Nov. 23, the Monday of Thanksgiving week, and the draft already leans toward approval.

6. 🔌 AZIO's South Texas Campus Signs Its First Tenant: 10 MW Now, $450 Million Maybe

On Friday, AZIO AI Holdings (formerly Envirotech Vehicles) announced its first hosting agreement at Atlas One, a 548-acre South Texas campus designed for up to 500 MW of behind-the-meter power. Hoodline covered the deal Sunday.
The firm commitment is 10 MW for five years, about $1.5 million a month or roughly $90 million in reservation charges. The customer, Power Champion Investment, can expand to 50 MW, and AZIO says the full build would bring in about $450 million. The rate is $150 per kilowatt-month, charged only on capacity that's actually delivered.
None of the capacity in the deal has been energized, and site qualification for the first 10 MW wasn't finished when it was announced. The campus has about 11 MW of behind-the-meter power secured and about 6 MW of computing running. Service also depends on U.S. export-control approvals.

Today's Signal: The headline number is $450 million, but the signed commitment is 10 MW at a site running about 6 MW today. Texas has about 40 GW of announced behind-the-meter capacity, and deals like this show how much of that figure is still options that may never be exercised.

7. ☀️ Solar and Batteries Got ERCOT Through Summer, and Today Large Loads Owe ERCOT Their Water Numbers

Texas added 3,440 MW of solar and 3.8 GWh of battery storage in the first half of 2026, bringing utility-scale storage to 33.1 GWh, according to a Solar Energy Industries Association and Benchmark report the San Antonio Express-News covered Sunday. SEIA's Daniel Giese said summer has basically stopped being a stress test for the Texas grid.
Today is ERCOT's deadline for projects with at least 25 MW of planned demand to answer its request for information on water use and incentives, the San Antonio Business Journal reported. ERCOT says individual responses will stay confidential.

Today's Signal: The grid's summer was quiet because of solar and batteries. Meanwhile the interconnection queue sits around 474 GW, mostly data centers. The water and incentive data due today goes to ERCOT confidentially, so the public will likely see a summary at most.

Across the three days, we found no new TCEQ air-permit notices for data centers or gas plants in Collin, Ellis, Johnson, Denton, Wise, Tarrant, Parker or Hood counties, and no new PUC docket action on large-load interconnection.

📍 Today's Watch List

Hudspeth County's Oct. 27 commissioners court presentation: what fuel the 350-MW on-site generation would use, whether an air permit has been filed, and whether the county gets documentation for the water claims.
Whether ERCOT says how many large-load projects answered today's water-and-incentives request, and whether it releases any summary.
What Taylor's development agreement actually requires for noise and air quality, and when the first construction or air-permit filings for the on-site plant show up.
Denton's Oct. 13 vote on data center code amendments.
The NRC commissioners' public meeting in Arlington on Oct. 15, and San Antonio's Oct. 15 zoning vote.
TCEQ's Oct. 19 compliance update to the governor, the same day early voting starts.
A hearing date in the Granbury officials' lawsuit against their own recall.
Project Matador's Nov. 23 public comment deadline and the NRC's final environmental statement in December.
Brownsville's Nov. 4 final reading on its moratorium.
Whether AZIO energizes its first 10 MW at Atlas One.
ERCOT's Dec. 10 audit report to the PUC and when Batch Zero resumes. Nothing material is expected before the December PUC meeting.