Tech giant Google has confirmed it will invest $40 billion in new data centers in Armstrong County, Texas Panhandle, and Haskell County, West Texas. The company has been operating in the state for 15 years, and this new investment will continue through 2027. The projects will add to the growing competitiveness in the data center space, as cloud service giants fight to build more infrastructure to support advanced AI models.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai states, “This investment will create thousands of jobs, provide skills training to college students and electrical apprentices, and accelerate energy affordability initiatives throughout Texas.”
Locals have been staunchly opposed to new data center construction, with many communities gathering in hundreds to sign petitions and reject proposals. Though they will create thousands of jobs in the local community, they also consume enormous amounts of energy, deplete natural resources, and boost utility consumption.
“Google’s $40 billion investment makes Texas Google’s largest investment in any state in the country and supports energy efficiency and workforce development in our state,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.
Data center construction: What growth looks like
Data center construction has exploded in recent years, thanks to the surge in both artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing. This growth has accelerated from a modest annual growth rate in 2018 to a double-digit percentage jump in capacity each year since.
In 2024, the global data center market was valued at $242.72 billion, according to Fortune Business Insights, and is projected to reach $269.79 billion by the end of 2025. By 2032, the same report projects the valuation at around $584.86 billion.
Generative AI models, particularly those based on deep learning, require significant computational resources for both training and inference. As the AI product market continues to skyrocket, this means even more demand for high-performance computing infrastructure and, as a result, more data centers. Generative AI products also require vast training data sets, which necessitate robust data storage and management systems.
These latest projects will add to Google’s collection of data centers already in use in Iowa, Virginia, South Carolina, and Oregon. Google data centers are carefully selected in accordance with regional demand, and the Texas projects prove no different. While data center construction has been growing, so has local opposition, with an estimated $64 billion in local projects delayed between May 2024 and March 2024 due to community pushback. Many residents come equipped with the same message: They’re concerned about the environment and noise pollution, and they say the new construction jobs created don’t justify the community and environmental harm.
The Texas counties specifically have yet to see a significant uprising in opposition from the local community. Still, Google is determined to forge ahead and remain a key player alongside companies like Oracle and Meta in the race to build AI infrastructure.
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