Texas already has 405 existing data centers and another 442 planned or under way according to Axios.com. That is not a “boom.” That is a land grab, at state scale.
And the headline number hides what’s really coming: this buildout is projected to drive roughly 746,096 temporary construction jobs, 110,500 permanent jobs, and about $1.654 billion in new tax revenue over 10 years in Texas alone (per the same dataset).
So yes, it’s jobs and investment. It is also the kind of growth that shows up in your power and water bills.
Why Texas keeps winning these projects
The short version: land, power, and speed. Texas has become a preferred place to build big, fast, and repeatedly. You can see the direction of travel in public announcements. Texas leaders have been openly courting this wave, including events tied to major new investment plans by the biggest players.
The first local fight: power
Data centers are basically industrial-scale electricity customers that never really “close.” That’s why Texas grid planners are now treating them like a reliability problem that must be managed, not just an economic win.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said it expects electricity demand within ERCOT to rise 7% in 2025 and 14% in 2026, specifically calling out large data centers and crypto mining coming online.
And ERCOT is already moving from polite requests to hard rules. ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas described a framework where data centers may be required to switch to on-site backup or cut load before the grid hits rotating outages, arguing that “all of this new growth… has to all come off before” outages begin.
The second local fight: water (especially outside the big cities)
Water is where the data-center story stops being abstract.
The Texas Tribune reported estimates that existing Texas data centers could consume about 25 billion gallons of water in 2025 (around 0.4% of statewide use), with demand potentially rising to as much as 2.7% by 2030.
In rural areas, the numbers get easier to picture. In Amarillo’s orbit, one proposed project asked for 2.5 million gallons of water per day, with discussions that it could rise higher. Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley compared that to the city’s roughly 50 million gallons a day, and said the city would price water accordingly if it sells any.
The third local fight: “backup” generators that do not feel like backup
Data centers are built around redundancy. That often means large diesel generators on site, tested regularly. Communities that already live near dense data-center corridors (like Northern Virginia) have turned generator use, noise, and air concerns into political warfare.
And on the power system side, the demand surge is reviving older, dirtier plants in some regions. Reuters reported that growing AI-driven demand is helping keep “peaker” plants online longer, with pollution burdens often landing in already overburdened communities.
These projects change who a town is for
A 400+ pipeline doesn’t just add buildings. It rewires local incentives.
If you live near Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, or the emerging “cheap land + transmission lines” zones, you’ll likely see some mix of:
- fast-track zoning debates (because timelines matter more than aesthetics)
- road upgrades for heavy construction
- new substations and transmission proposals
- a bigger split between people who want the tax base and people who want quiet
Texas is not unique here. It’s just early, and huge.
The question everyone is about to ask
If Texas is stacking 442 more data centers on top of 405 existing, do locals get the upside… or do they mostly get the infrastructure bill? Because the next phase of the AI era is not going to feel like a software story. It’s going to feel like land, water, power, and politics.
