Amazon backs giant Texas gas plant for data center power
Amazon said it was backing a 7.65-gigawatt gas plant in Pecos County, a project critics say could emit 33 million tons of CO2 a year.
Amazon confirmed it was financially backing a massive gas-fired power project in Pecos County, Texas, and had acquired the GW Ranch site in West Texas for a private-grid campus built to power hyperscale data centers and AI workloads. The move tied the company to a proposed plant that analysts said could become the largest natural-gas power facility ever built in the United States.
Pacifico Energy said in January 2026 that it had secured a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality air permit for the GW Ranch project. The permit allowed up to 7.65 gigawatts of power generation, a scale that energy analysts said had no match on the existing American grid. At that size, the Texas plant would exceed anything currently operating in the country and would sit in a category of its own among U.S. power projects.
The climate stakes were just as large. The project has been described as potentially emitting up to 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which would make it the most polluting single source in the United States by permitted emissions. That prospect has fueled criticism from climate advocates and journalists who argue that Amazon’s data-center buildout is deepening the fossil-fuel dependence of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Amazon’s public sustainability pages continue to emphasize climate solutions and more efficient data centers, a message that has sharpened scrutiny of the West Texas project. The company’s backing of a giant gas plant runs directly into those climate commitments, especially as the site is being developed around off-grid power for high-demand computing.
Congress has already started pressing for answers. On March 13, 2026, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee sent Pacifico Energy executives Nate Franklin and Constantyn Gieskes a letter asking for information about plans to power a hyperscale data-center campus in Pecos County with a large new complex of gas-fired power plants. The committee’s request put the project on Capitol Hill’s radar before Amazon publicly confirmed its role in the deal.
The West Texas plant now sits at the intersection of AI expansion, utility-scale gas development, and federal scrutiny. With Amazon financially behind the project and the permits already in place, the proposed GW Ranch buildout moved from a private energy play to one of the most consequential data-center power proposals in the country.
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