The rise of artificial intelligence, the digitization of the economy and everyday life’s growing computing needs have turbocharged the expansion of data centers, driving up a surge in electricity demand in Texas and across the country.
Texas’ main grid operator predicts power demand will nearly double by 2030, in part due to more requests to plug into the grid from large users like data centers, crypto mining facilities, hydrogen production plants and oil and gas companies.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced Stargate, a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle that will invest up to $500 billion in AI-related infrastructure.
Texas will serve as ground zero, with 10 data centers by the venture already under construction in the state, 10 more on the way and the first project based in Abilene, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said. Each building will occupy half a million square feet.
The announcement reflected the hunger for data centers across industries and a yearslong push to increase data capacity. Ellison noted that the partnership had been in the works for years. He said the new data centers could offer services like maintaining electronic health care records and helping hospitals share medical knowledge