Data Centers in Texas: How Many, Where and What Is Queued (2026)

How Many Data Centers Are in Texas? 815 Tracked, About 84 Operating

Texas has about 84 operating data centers and 815 tracked in all stages, depending on the tracker and the date. The numbers are far apart because trackers count different things.

Two of those figures cannot both be right as stated: Cleanview puts operating capacity near 3.8 GW and Baxtel near 11.1 GW. The likely reason is definitions. A tracker that counts every building on a campus at its design capacity will report far more than one that counts only energized load. As a rough check, EPRI estimated that Texas data centers used 21.8 TWh of electricity in 2023, an average draw of about 2.5 GW over the year. That sits closer to the lower figure.

Texas and Virginia are the two heavyweights, and they differ in which direction they lean.

Virginia has more of what is already running. Texas has more of what is coming.

So how many data centers does Texas have? About 84 are running, according to Cleanview. About 815 will exist if every tracked project gets built, which almost certainly will not happen. For how Texas compares with the other states, see our ranking of data centers by state.

Where the Data Centers Are: Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Houston and West Texas

Dallas-Fort Worth is Texas's biggest established market, and West Texas is where the largest new campuses are going. No public source publishes a clean table of Texas campuses by megawatt, so the market-level figures below come from CBRE and JLL reports.

Dallas-Fort Worth

CBRE's first-half 2026 figures put DFW at more than 1,400 MW of inventory, with about 765 MW under construction, 95% of it already pre-leased. Vacancy was about 2.8%. Under-construction capacity in DFW rose 81% from a year earlier, and developers have another 3.7 GW of greenfield land planned but not yet under construction.

Austin, San Antonio and Houston

These are smaller markets, and no public source gives comparable megawatt totals for them. Cleanview's statewide count of 815 buildings includes them, but the split by city is not published in a form we could verify.

West Texas and Abilene

JLL names West Texas among the "frontier" markets that hold 77% of all capacity under development in North America. Abilene is the best-known example. The Stargate campus there was planned at about 1.2 GW across eight buildings, and Oracle has said two buildings were fully operational. In March 2026 reports said Oracle and OpenAI had dropped a separate 600 MW expansion, which Oracle disputed. Our guide to the OpenAI Stargate project covers the campus in more detail.

The pattern matters more than any single campus. Texas data centers are splitting into two groups: established markets near Dallas and San Antonio that are almost full, and remote sites where a developer brings land, power and sometimes its own generation.

The ERCOT Queue: 474 GW of Requests Against 3.8 GW Operating

ERCOT, the grid operator for most of Texas, has about 474 GW of large-load requests in its queue, and about 90% of them are data centers, according to Governor Abbott's August 3, 2026 letter, reported by Utility Dive. That is more than five times the record peak demand the Texas grid has ever served.

The Number Most Guides Don't Show

Divide the queue by what is running. The 474 GW of requests is about 125 times the roughly 3.8 GW of operating data center capacity Cleanview counted in April 2026. It is also about 18 times JLL's 26 GW of existing and under-construction capacity. Keep that ratio in mind whenever you read a headline about Texas data center demand.

Nobody expects most of that queue to be built. Duplicate requests are a known problem: SB 6 now requires developers to disclose potentially duplicative requests elsewhere in Texas. ERCOT's Chad Seely, its senior vice president of regulatory policy, said in August 2026 that the projects in its first study batch have "made it through all the ERCOT gates, except for that last gate."

The queue still matters, because even a small slice of it would change Texas's grid. At the 2023 level EPRI measured, data centers already used 21.8 TWh, or 4.59% of the state's electricity. EPRI's 2030 scenarios put that share between about 5% and 11%.

What SB 6 changed

Texas Senate Bill 6, signed in June 2025, applies to loads of 75 MW or more on the ERCOT grid. Large non-critical loads must accept curtailment during firm load shed events, new connections need shutoff equipment, and developers pay a $100,000 minimum interconnection fee and must disclose duplicate requests. ERCOT's "Batch Zero" process now covers about 300 data centers of 75 MW or larger, and ERCOT has said it aims to file a verification and audit report with the Public Utility Commission by December 10, 2026.

Abbott's 2026 Pause, Standards and Water Letters

On August 3, 2026, Governor Abbott asked ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission to pause new data center grid connections until questions about energy, water and public money are answered. The audit is still running, so the numbers in the queue will keep changing.

On August 13, 2026, his office announced that Microsoft, Hut 8 and Equinix had committed to comply with a set of standards. Before a project can proceed, the commission and ERCOT must receive and audit these disclosures:

• all public incentives, grants and abatements tied to the project
• projected power demand and plans for on-site generation
• water sources, projected use, reuse procedures and water-efficient cooling
• measures to reduce effects on neighbors, such as noise, lighting, setbacks, traffic and emergency response
• project ownership and controlling interests

Companies that fail the audit may have their approval denied.

"I established clear guardrails to ensure data centers protect our electric grid, conserve our water, ..." (Governor Greg Abbott, Aug 13, 2026)

Water became its own front. On October 15, 2026, Attorney General Ken Paxton's office sent 156 letters to data center developments in 32 counties, demanding "current and accurate information about their water usage." The letters follow an investigation into developments that did not respond to the Texas Water Development Board's water-use survey. For how much water AI facilities use in general, see our explainer on how much water AI uses.

What the Texas Data Center Tax Break Costs

Texas gave up a little over $1 billion in state sales tax revenue on data centers in fiscal 2025, about eight times the comptroller's earlier estimate of $130 million, according to the Texas Tribune's April 2026 reporting on Comptroller data. Qualifying data centers skip the state's 6.25% sales tax on purchases tied to building and maintaining the facility.

About 121 data centers are receiving the break, according to the comptroller's database, and a records request for facility-level amounts was denied. Senator Joan Huffman, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, did not soften her reaction.

"These new numbers are extremely concerning and I will say they're unsustainable." (Joan Huffman, Chair, Senate Committee on Finance, Apr 2026)

The industry's answer is that the facilities pay other taxes, and that cutting the break would send a signal. Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition called the idea a "hostile message" that would give companies pause. Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, a San Antonio Democrat, took the other side: "If you want the benefits, you've got to carry some of the burden."

AI Data Centers in Texas: Why the Boom Landed Here

AI data centers are in Texas because the state offers land, a grid that welcomes new load and, until recently, few rules. JLL counts 26 GW of existing and under-construction capacity in Texas, twice Virginia's 13 GW, and says West Texas is part of the frontier market group holding 77% of all capacity under development.

Three things set Texas apart from Virginia.

• Land. A campus that needs hundreds of acres and its own substation is easier to site in West Texas than in Loudoun County.
• A separate grid. ERCOT is largely isolated from the rest of the country, so Texas can write its own interconnection rules, as SB 6 shows.
• Self-supply. Some developers bring their own generation, which reduces how much they ask of the grid.

None of that makes the build-out risk-free. A grid with a 474 GW queue and a record peak of a fraction of that is a grid where promises outnumber power plants. For how AI workloads turn into electricity demand, see AI data center power consumption.

What Comes Next: The December Audit and a New Governor

The next few months will decide how easy Texas stays for data center developers. Three dates matter.

• December 10, 2026. ERCOT aims to file its audit of the hundreds of data center proposals in Batch Zero with the Public Utility Commission. ERCOT's Chad Seely has said the study will not be done by April 9, 2027.
• January 19, 2027. Gina Hinojosa, who won the governor's race on November 3, 2026, takes office. She has promised a moratorium on data center approvals until the Legislature passes new protections, and to end the tax break.
• The legislative session. Hinojosa cannot repeal the sales tax exemption by executive action alone. With a Democratic-led House and a Republican-led Senate, any change would need bipartisan votes, and Abbott has also said he will pursue ending the tax breaks.

"When I am governor I will issue a moratorium ... on all data center approvals until laws can be passed by the Legislature to protect Texans." (Gina Hinojosa, Governor-elect of Texas, Oct 22, 2026, on X)

The pause already in place covers some approvals. Hinojosa has called it a pause "in name only". Whatever the next governor does, the likely result is that fewer of the 140 planned projects reach construction, and the ones that do will have to disclose far more than they did a year ago.

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