Defend Texas exceptionalism. Build more data centers.
In Texas, people divide along many lines: Republicans and Democrats, Longhorns and Aggies, beans or no beans. But no rivalry, political disagreement or culinary heresy compares to the urban-rural feud that animates the nastiest fights in Austin. Time and again, the same arguments reign supreme: How should the costs of urban and industrial expansion be shared, and should Texas keep building when future resources are uncertain?
With ERCOT forecasting power demand to quadruple by 2032 as data centers and other large users flock to our state, that old fight has found a new battleground. The main critique comes from Luddites, who fear the future and see these facilities as another utility burden on a state already stretched for water and power. But the reality is that data itself will be a resource in the economy of the future, and Texas history shows we know how to get the most out of our resources.
After all, Texas didn't prosper by just praying for rain. We built dams and captured water for use during droughts. We saw opportunity in the floodwaters that destroyed communities and innovated ways to protect property and secure a vital resource.
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And we repeated this cycle generation after generation. First water. Then railroads. Then oil and gas. Now data.
Throughout our state’s history, Texans have fought to secure the resources and utilities necessary to carry our state into the future. And as far back as you can look, water has topped the list of concerns for communities across the state.
Though Virginia leads the nation in total data centers for now, Texas recently took the top spot when including planned facilities. Meta recently announced a new facility in El Paso, and Taylor, near Austin, announced a $2.5 billion complex next to the Samsung chip facility. This infrastructure will help drive the AI boom and also serve as the backbone and nervous system of the entire internet. Neither modern e-commerce nor digital communication would be possible without data centers.
According to the Texas Economic Development Council, the data center industry supports over 485,000 direct and indirect jobs in Texas, generating $35 billion in labor income statewide. Another study determined that, including abatements and grants, state and local jurisdictions brought in $3.2 billion in 2024, with an additional $4.9 billion in estimated tax revenue when all planned projects are online. And that was before the Texas Data Boom. That’s roughly the same amount as the severance taxes Texas recently collected from the oil and gas industry.
That is why this moment matters. Not because data centers are the new flashpoint, but because the arguments against them have permeated Texas politics and discourse since its founding.
As always, anti-growth scolds, local obstructionists and panic merchants hear the words “new infrastructure” and search for any reason to stop it. Today, it is data centers. Yesterday, it was reservoirs, pipelines and transmission lines. Tomorrow, it will be the next innovation or invention that takes us into a new age.
Texas grows because Texans stand athwart history, yelling, “Give us more!” More capacity, more people, more infrastructure and more will than the people betting against us!
Because as varied in geography and culture as Texas may be, it is more than a Lone Star on a field of blue or the anchor at the bottom of a map. Texas is a wager that a person can come here with mere grit and build something new where before there was only open space, scorched earth and thistled brush.
People do not come to Texas because it is finished, fine or comfortable. They come because it is unfinished, unrefined and uncomfortable. They come because somewhere deep in their bones they believe this is a place where risk is rewarded and where the government — and your neighbors — won’t be a roadblock on your path to success.
They know that challenges are real — but they’re not reasons to give up. They’re reasons to try harder.
Over 100 years ago, the San Antonio Light reported on the efforts by home-rule jurisdictions to issue bonds to build dams to catch storm waters for use during droughts for “people and stock.” It mentioned that, 50 years prior, another newspaper made a similar mention of fixing that same problem.
Again, we find ourselves in a position where we need to develop more water resources and new ways to conserve the water we have. Closed-loop systems, like the one approved at the new $2.5 billion data center facility in Taylor, take a one-time draw of water that can be reused over and over again.
As tech companies look to make massive investments in data centers, their eyes naturally fall on Texas because of our unique blend of business-friendly regulations, location, geography and infrastructure capacity.
We can do what lesser states have done, and heel to the obnoxious crowd of cynics and critics who whip opposition to any new infrastructure or technology.
Or we can do what Texans have done for generations and build for the next boom.