Thursday, May 21, 2026

Dallas, Austin, West Texas Sweep the Global Top Three

Dallas, Austin, and West Texas now hold the global top three datacenter markets, and the developers who locked transmission queue position and behind-the-meter generation early are the ones holding the keys. Power and water are now the binding constraints, and Texas is still writing the rules.

Today's Lead

Texas just took the data center crown. Cushman & Wakefield's latest global ranking puts Dallas first, Austin-San Antonio second, and West Texas third, with West Texas alone carrying 2.9 GW under construction, more than the entire EMEA region's 2.7 GW combined.

The win is structural: a deregulated grid, the $9.4 billion Eastern Backbone 765-kV transmission build, and a PUCT batch study process that evaluates interconnection requests concurrently. The constraint has shifted from capital and chips to physical capacity to move electrons, and that's exactly where Texas owns advantage at scale.

[1]·[2]

Power

Generation moves behind the meter as the queue fills up

Nebius signed Bloom Energy for 328 MW of solid oxide fuel cells at an undisclosed US site, operational this year. Bloom's Oracle book just expanded from 1.2 GW to 2.8 GW, and the company's already booked 100+ MW with Equinix across 19 facilities and up to 1 GW with American Electric Power for off-grid AI campuses. Separately, Blackstone committed $5 billion to bring 500 MW of Google TPU capacity online by 2027, a neocloud-tier deployment that'll need transmission, generation, and water locked before sites get named.

NERC projects summer peak demand could rise 224 GW over the next decade. Transformers are running 18 to 24 month lead times, switchgear's up 77%, wires and cables up 152% since 2019. Developers who've already secured transmission queue position, utility relationships, or behind-the-meter generation have leverage. Those still navigating interconnection face a tighter market for sites that meet hyperscaler timelines.

[3]·[4]·[2]

Politics

Texas debates the terms while other states close the door

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller called for a statewide moratorium, citing University of Texas research that datacenters could hit 9% of state water use by 2040. Rep. Hillary Hickland amplified. Industry's counter, a PwC study commissioned by the Data Center Coalition, claims the sector contributed $4.5 billion to state and local governments in 2024. Austin's mayor and four council members have tasked the city manager with a July recommendation on whether large-scale datacenters should remain permissible inside city limits. Hill County's already approved a one-year moratorium. Fort Worth tabled Black Mountain's $10 billion campus to June 23.

Contrast that with the elsewhere file: Harford County, Maryland is converting a temporary pause into an emergency permanent ban, ignoring a developer who showed up with a signed community benefits agreement and labor support. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is losing his base after a 2021 tax-incentive law moved faster than community engagement. Colorado's only statewide datacenter water reporting bill died 9-0 in committee, fragmenting compliance into Denver, Aurora, and Jefferson County moratoria. Texas is still deliberating, which means developers with signed anchor tenants, secured generation, and water offset agreements can shape outcomes before rules harden.

[5]·[6]·[7]·[8]·[9]·[10]

Sources we cited

10 articles across 9 publishers · 300 reviewed today

[1]Propmodo
Why the World’s Top Data Center Market Is Now in Texas
May 20, 2026·For most of the past two decades, the question of where to build a data center had a fairly predictable answer. Operators followed the netwo…
[2]Datacenter Knowledge
Why FAST-41 Now Covers AI Data Centers and Copper
May 20, 2026·Federal permitting now covers hyperscale campuses, critical minerals, and transmission in a single framework. The federal government is inc…
[3]Data Center Dynamics
Nebius to deploy Bloom Energy fuel cells to power its US data centers
May 21, 2026·First project will see the deployment of up to 328MW of capacity Neocloud Nebius has signed a deal with US fuel cell company Bloom Energy t…
[4]Datacenter Knowledge
Does Google’s $5B TPU Deal Signal a New Neocloud Era?
May 19, 2026·The Blackstone partnership could push Google's custom AI accelerators beyond the traditional hyperscale cloud model, giving enterprise IT bu…
[5]Killeen Daily Herald
Texas AG commissioner calls for data center moratorium, Rep. Hickland raises questions
May 20, 2026·AUSTIN — Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller called for a statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers as opposition grows over…
[6]Austin American-Statesman
Watson charges city to weigh potential AI data center regulations - Austin American-Statesman
May 20, 2026·Construction workers build out the rooftop chillers and water lines feeding them atop Dallas TX4, which is under construction at the NTT Dat…
[7]Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Black Mountain's Fort Worth data center: tax revenue, ERCOT & political headwinds - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
May 20, 2026·Fort Worth-based energy consortium Black Mountain is pushing a $10 billion data center project through a zoning gauntlet on the city’s south…
[8]WMAR
Harford County Council moves forward with emergency legislation to ban data centers, scraps 90-day pause
May 20, 2026·Taylor Epps is a multimedia journalist/reporter with WMAR, joining the station in March 2026. HARFORD COUNTY, Md. — The Harford County Coun…
[9]TechRadar
Shapiro faces growing rebellion from residents over data center expansion
May 19, 2026·Data center expansion triggered political chaos in Pennsylvania A furious backlash against data center expansion in the state has placed Pe…
[10]Rocky Mountain Voice
Colorado killed its only data center water bills. Cities are filling the gap themselves.
May 20, 2026·By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado spent a year trying to answer a basic question: should companies buildi…

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