Texas AI Data Center Tracker
A running, dated record of what's happening as the AI data center boom reshapes Texas — grid strain, water use, land deals, and who's building where. Every entry links back to its original source. Updated as new stories break.
August 26, 2026
Morning Briefing: Texas & DFW AI Data Centers, Grid, Land Use
Power Grab TX (internal briefing)
BloombergNEF just put a real number on the audit's cost — up to $15 billion and 49.8 GW delayed — and Big Tech is applauding it anyway, while two separate ALJ panels are now finding Oncor skipped notice to thousands of landowners on the same 765-kV lines everyone agrees the grid needs.
August 25, 2026
Morning Briefing: Texas & DFW AI Data Centers, Grid, Land Use
Power Grab TX (internal briefing)
Global Energy Monitor's new tracker confirms Texas's 12 largest gas plants — some pegged at 24 million tons of CO2 a year apiece — exist solely to run AI data centers, while Hood County is still waiting on the zoning opinion Paxton's office promised months ago, now six months overdue and counting.
August 24, 2026
Morning Briefing: Texas & DFW AI Data Centers, Grid, Land Use
Power Grab TX (internal briefing)
SOAH's recommendation to kill one leg of the 765-kV buildout and an oil-and-gas-to-manufacturing coalition letter warning of blackouts both landed the same week Paxton and Talarico rolled out dueling data-center plans — the audit that was supposed to cool this down is instead giving every side in two statewide races something new to point at.
August 23, 2026
Morning Briefing: Texas & DFW AI Data Centers, Grid, Land Use
Power Grab TX (internal briefing)
Abbott's defense for skipping a special session is that his own audit is still less than 10% complete — a data gap he's using as the reason lawmakers don't get a vote on data centers until January.
August 21, 2026
Morning Briefing: Texas & DFW AI Data Centers, Grid, Land Use
Power Grab TX (internal briefing)
Three weeks after Abbott ordered the audit with no real deadline attached, the PUC finally gave it one — Dec. 10 to verify, Dec. 17 to report — and the timing is no accident that PowerHouse, Westlake's own embattled developer, is one of the names now on record agreeing to comply.
August 20, 2026
Morning Briefing: Texas & DFW AI Data Centers, Grid, Land Use
Power Grab TX (internal briefing)
The tell isn't that lawmakers held another hearing — it's that the tax break's own Republican author told the room it's realistically going away, and ERCOT finally put a month on its audit (December), which is the first real signal either fight has an end date.
August 13, 2026
The Biggest Polluter: Amazon's Pecos County Gas Plant Could Out-Emit Every Power Plant in America
Power Grab TX (editorial)
TCEQ's air permit for Amazon's 35-turbine, 7.65-GW Pecos County plant authorizes up to 33 million tons of CO2 a year — nearly double the country's current largest polluter — and because the campus is behind-the-meter and never touches ERCOT, it sails right past the interconnection freeze meant to slow this whole boom down.
August 10, 2026
Everything’s bigger in Texas: Musk’s planned $16.8 billion chip factory is five times bigger than the world’s current largest building
Yahoo Finance
Elon Musk is betting that the next phase of his sprawling technology empire will require a building on a scale that has never existed before. SpaceX and Tesla are building Terafab, a 100-million-square-foot semiconductor manufacturing facility in Grimes County, Texas, more than five times the size of the world's largest building.
August 10, 2026
The Nuclear Bet: Texas Wagers on Unproven Reactors to Power the AI Boom
Power Grab TX (editorial)
Six small nuclear projects — Last Energy near Abilene, Natura Resources at Abilene Christian, Aalo Atomics in Austin, Blue Energy/Crusoe at Port of Victoria, X-energy/Dow at Seadrift, and the nuclear leg of Fermi America's Project Matador — are all racing to power AI data centers, but zero SMRs have reached commercial operation anywhere in the U.S. and the same governor courting the reactors fought a West Texas spent-fuel storage license back in 2020.
August 9, 2026
In the Dark by Design: Texas Can't Manage What AI Data Centers Won't Disclose
Power Grab TX (editorial)
Our own take on the disclosure gap driving this whole story: 341 data centers, only 17% responding to a legally required water survey, and a payday-lending statute in Bexar County now being stretched to hide commercial water use from public records.
August 6, 2026
Texas Data Centers Suffer Brutal Collision With Reality
Futurism
Texas is tripling down on the construction of AI Data Centers, at any cost, but there is a glaring problem that is grinding construction plans to a halt: a woefully inadequate power grid that won’t be able to support all of these new facilities.
July 15, 2026
Valero, Citgo and LyondellBassell, versus Corpus Christi in water dispute
Power Grab TX - Briefing
Current state: the industry coalition (Valero, Citgo, LyondellBasell, under Affordable Water for Corpus Christi is seeking an ~$80 million refund. PUC staff recommended only $6 million, and the companies' settlement offer of $4 million was rejected by the city. So it's headed to a full hearing where an administrative law judge will hear both sides and issue a recommendation — but the actual decision rests with the Public Utility Commission of Texas, not the judge. No ruling yet as of the latest reporting (July 13–15, 2026).
July 9, 2026
Planned Texas data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than many countries
The Texas Tribune
An AI Data Center in you back yard, a cautionary warning foe everybody.
July 3, 2026
Gov. Greg Abbott doubles down on limitations on Texas data centers
El Paso Times
Flip flopping seems to be the flavor of the month, Is Gov. Abbot up for reelection?
July 2, 2026
Proposed Texas AI power plants could emit 287 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, report says
KERA News
Worth watching whether this shifts the water/reliability debate toward an emissions angle too.
June 27, 2026
Texas Stargate AI site saw 14 emergency calls, broken legs, and water called 'a luxury'
Yahoo News
Construction-phase safety concerns at the Abilene Stargate site — separate issue from the grid capacity debate, but part of the same growth story.
June 22, 2026
Powering the next wave of AI: Expanding capacity with our new datacenter in Pecos
Microsoft (official announcement)
Described by Microsoft as one of its largest single capacity additions — exact MW not yet public.
June 19, 2026
Meta signs 1.6 gigawatt AI compute deals with Crusoe Energy across Texas and Missouri
Crypto Briefing (citing Bloomberg)
1.6 GW is combined across two states — the Texas-only share isn't broken out yet.
June 18, 2026
Texas Tackles AI Power Demand With New Data Center Grid Rules
Bloomberg Government
A direct regulatory response to the interconnection queue backlog — worth a closer read on the actual rule text.
June 16, 2026
Nvidia's Huang pledges AI will boost manufacturing jobs. A test will come in Texas
AP News
Time will tell if this in fact the case or 'smoke and mirrors' to allay the public's fear.