Subscribers already knew this. Get real-time access →

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

35 GW Pre-Leased, 107-Week Lead Times, Zero Margin for Error

JLL's latest numbers frame the scale of what's coming: 35 GW under construction across North America, 92% already pre-leased, and Texas accounting for 6.5 GW of that pipeline. Enough, potentially, to dethrone Northern Virginia as the continent's top datacenter market by 2030. But the delivery window is 2027-2028, and the bottlenecks aren't theoretical. Stargate's air permits reveal a supply chain running through Chinese-owned Baudouin engines with 107-week lead times from alternative manufacturers. Hood County commissioners vote Tuesday on whether to defy their own county attorney and pursue a datacenter moratorium that state lawmakers have already signaled won't survive legal challenge. And Sam Altman's dismissal of water concerns as "completely untrue, totally insane" lands the same week Houston Advanced Research Center projections show Texas datacenter water consumption could hit 161 billion gallons annually by 2030. The gap between what's been pre-leased and what can actually be built, powered, cooled, and permitted is where the real story lives.

Today's Lead

JLL's Year-End 2025 report reveals North America now holds 39 GW of installed datacenter capacity, with 35 GW under construction and 92% already pre-leased. Texas is the geographic pivot: JLL projects the state could surpass Northern Virginia as North America's top datacenter market by 2030, with 6.5 GW currently under construction representing one-fifth of all U.S. pipeline additions last year. That trajectory is colliding in real time with community opposition, legal constraints on local regulation, generator supply chain bottlenecks, and water fights stretching from Hood County to El Paso. The 2027-2028 delivery window compresses every one of these pressure points into a regulatory sprint.

[1]·[2]

Politics

Hood County's Moratorium Fight Tests the Limits of Rural Texas Authority

Hood County commissioners will vote Tuesday on whether to revisit a datacenter moratorium that failed 3-2 earlier this month, this time by requesting a formal Texas Attorney General opinion on county authority. The legal walls are closing in. County Attorney Matthew Mills has warned commissioners point-blank: "I don't believe you have the authority to do a moratorium period." State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, chair of the Senate Local Government Committee, sent a letter to the AG's office asserting counties "do not have broad moratorium authority, and never have," noting that House Bill 2559 deliberately excluded counties when it clarified municipal moratorium powers.

Meanwhile, rural residents bused into Austin Monday to demand Gov. Abbott convene a special session for a statewide moratorium or grant counties explicit siting authority. The flashpoint is a 2,600-acre campus planned for Hood County's Paluxy Valley near Dinosaur Valley State Park, featuring dozens of buildings and gas-fired power plants. SMU professor Matthew Wilson confirmed the core constraint: counties are "entirely subservient to state government."

If Hood County proceeds anyway, it faces near-certain state litigation that would drain county resources and likely establish precedent foreclosing rural land-use controls statewide. Watch Tuesday's vote, any AG opinion request, and whether Abbott signals any appetite for a special session.

[3]·[2]

Power

Powered Land Is the New Bottleneck, and Consolidation Is Accelerating

Scale's acquisition of Reload, backed by EQT, bets that hyperscalers will keep buying pre-powered sites to dodge grid interconnection queues stretching 5-7 years. Reload brings a multi-GW pipeline across Texas, Virginia, and Ohio. Scale CEO Ryan Goodman says project sizes entering the portfolio are "substantially" larger than past engagements: "We're now entering this new regime." Separately, Cloverleaf Infrastructure, staffed with Pattern Energy, ConnectGen, and Microsoft alumni, raised $300 million from NGP and Sandbrook Capital in 2024 and is reportedly fielding acquisition interest.

Jefferies analysts project behind-the-meter capacity will grow 17% annually to 25 GW by 2030. Google's new Wilbarger County deal with AES exemplifies this model: air-cooled, co-located with AES-developed generation, construction-ready with land and interconnection already under contract. Google has now contracted over 7,800 MW of net-new generation capacity in Texas via PPAs, part of a $40 billion investment commitment through 2027.

The risk: if grid queues shorten faster than expected, BTM cost advantages erode and pipeline assets get stranded. And natural gas supply chains face their own bottlenecks as BTM proliferates.

[4]·[5]

Power/Politics

Stargate's Generator Permits Expose a Baudouin Chokehold

Buried on pages 42-43 of Stargate's Texas air permit: 28 emergency backup generators powered by Baudouin engines, a French brand owned by Chinese conglomerate Weichai Group. Generac holds a de facto monopoly on Baudouin distribution in the U.S. datacenter market. Lead times from Caterpillar, Cummins, and Rolls-Royce stretch to 107 weeks. Hunterbrook identified IGSA Power, a Mexico-based manufacturer with a Laredo office, as a likely second supplier, with an IGSA representative referencing "Abilene DC3, DC4, DC8" in connection with Crusoe generator orders. Trade data shows neither Baudouin nor Weichai imported finished generator sets for U.S. datacenters, only engines and parts, suggesting Generac's packaging role can't easily be replaced. Permit approval doesn't equal timeline execution; the real constraint is fabrication and delivery of those 28 units.

[6]

Politics

Over 200 State Bills Signal a Regulatory Reckoning for Datacenter Economics

WilmerHale catalogues over 200 datacenter-targeted bills introduced across all 50 states in 2025, with 40+ enacted. Texas already mandates load-shedding during grid emergencies and authorizes compensation for demand reductions. New York's Governor Hochul proposed requiring large-load projects to fully cover grid upgrade costs or self-generate. Florida's SB 484 cleared the Senate Rules Committee unanimously, requiring large-load customers to bear full service costs.

Meta's $437 million gas plant in El Paso illustrates the friction: El Paso City Council voted unanimously to intervene in the regulatory process over concerns the plant could eventually roll into the utility rate base. The Sembrando Esperanza Coalition's organizer Verónica Carbajal said the community was told "Meta is going green" but "when we looked at the contracts ourselves, we realized that was an illusion."

WilmerHale flags that constitutional commerce-clause challenges and rate-discrimination claims are likely as datacenter-specific tariffs proliferate. The legal fault line: industry-funded analysis claims large datacenters cover full service costs and may even reduce retail rates, but states are legislating without consensus on that question.

[7]·[8]·[9]

Sources we cited

9 articles across 9 publishers · 229 reviewed today

  • [1]Data Center Frontier
    JLL: Hyperscale and AI Demand Push North American Data Centers Toward Industrial Scale
    Feb 23, 2026·JLL’s North America Data Center Report Year-End 2025 makes a clear argument that the sector is no longer merely expanding but has shifted in…
  • [2]Austin American-Statesman
    Rural residents call for statewide data center moratorium - Austin American-Statesman
    Feb 23, 2026·Advocacy groups and community members protest laws surrounding data centers while outside the Texas Capitol in Austin on Monday. Protestors …
  • [3]KERA News
    Hood County to consider another data center moratorium despite potential legal concerns
    Feb 24, 2026·Hood County leaders will once again weigh whether to hit pause on large-scale data center development. But even if they move forward, state…
  • [4]Latitude Media
    Scale buys Reload as the hunt for powered land heats up
    Feb 23, 2026·The microgrid developer is betting on hyperscalers' bringing their own power to sidestep grid delays The post Scale buys Reload as the hunt …
  • [5]News Channel 6
    Google announces new “clean energy” data center agreement with Wilbarger County
    Feb 24, 2026·WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) - A new air-cooled data center will be making its way to Wilbarger County in a “power-first” initiative between …
  • [6]Hunterbrook
    Buried in Stargate’s Permits: A Generator Engine Almost No One Sells. Except Generac.
    Feb 23, 2026·Based on Hunterbrook Media’s reporting, Hunterbrook Capital is long $GNRC and short a basket of comparable securities at the time of publica…
  • [7]WilmerHale
    State Regulation of Data Centers: Emerging Trends and Potential Legal Complexities
    Feb 23, 2026·Data centers are proliferating across the United States—and across the legislative and regulatory agendas of state and local governments. In…
  • [8]Florida Politics
    Mark McNees: Sam Altman just made the case for SB 484
    Feb 23, 2026·OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told an audience at the India AI Impact Forum last week that concerns about data center water consumption are “totally…
  • [9]constructionreviewonline.com
    Meta Tables Plans for $437M Gas-fired Power Plant to Run its Data Center in El Paso, Texas
    Feb 24, 2026·Meta is making plans for a $437 million gas-fired power plant to run its data center in El Paso, Texas despite significant pushback. The 1GW…

Search across 25,000+ tracked articles → coming with paid