Texas Sweeps Global Top Three as Power and Water Decide Who Builds

Texas swept the global data center rankings this week, and the constraint that decides who actually builds shifted from capital to physical capacity: power delivery timelines, water rights, and the political license to operate.

The Texas Sweep and Its Real Constraint

Cushman & Wakefield's 2026 Global Data Center Market Comparison put Dallas at #1 worldwide, Austin-San Antonio at #2, and West Texas at #3, with 31.7 GW under construction statewide and 2.9 GW in West Texas alone, more than all of EMEA combined. Power delivery now averages roughly five years across the Americas, which is why the deal flow this week was about generation, not buildings:

• •NextEra's $66.8 billion all-stock acquisition of Dominion creates the world's largest regulated utility with a 130 GW large-load pipeline, validating the self-supply playbook (May 19)
• •Blackstone committed $5 billion for 500 MW of Google TPU capacity by 2027; Nebius signed Bloom Energy for 328 MW of solid oxide fuel cells (May 21)
• •Black Mountain bought 2,000+ acres in Parker County and secured TCEQ approval for five gas turbines ahead of its $10 billion Fort Worth campus (May 22)

Eric Goff calls ERCOT's queue "effectively infinite" at 400 GW, which is why El Paso Electric's High Load Factor Large Power tariff at the PUCT matters more than most headlines this week (May 20).

Water Becomes the Municipal Veto

Corpus Christi's five-reservoir system sits below 10% capacity while Sinton, a town of 5,500, blocks the city's Evangeline aquifer drilling permits in court amid rumors of a competing data center. The Texas Water Development Board's draft 2027 plan doesn't mention data centers at all, even as UT researchers project the sector could hit 9% of state water use by 2040 (May 22). Rep. Chip Roy filed federal disclosure legislation Friday tied to EO 14318's 100 MW threshold (May 23).

Politics Hardens Around Self-Supply

The cost-causation question has effectively been answered everywhere except Texas, and Texas is next:

• •Oklahoma's HB 2992 requires 75 MW+ loads to sign long-term cost-recovery agreements July 1
• •Google's $15 billion Missouri campus runs entirely through SB4 self-funding with a $20 million Energy Impact Fund
• •North Carolina's SB 730 advanced with 78% voter support for self-supply mandates
• •Fort Worth deferred Edged's $1 billion Veale Ranch incentive pending City Manager Jay Chapa's June 2 report (May 18)

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller called for a statewide moratorium; Austin's council ordered a July recommendation on whether large facilities should remain permissible inside city limits. The developers who show up with anchor tenants, secured generation, and signed water offsets will shape the rules. Quiet permitting is over.

What to Watch

• •June 2: Fort Worth City Manager Jay Chapa's comprehensive data center policy report, the template other Texas councils will copy
• •June 23: Fort Worth's reset vote on Black Mountain's $10 billion campus
• •July: Austin City Manager's recommendation on large-scale data center permissibility inside city limits
• •NERC compliance clock: Registered entities must acknowledge the Level 3 Alert by May 11, 2026 with implementation reporting due August 3