Texas poised to become nation’s largest data-center hub in years

Texas is on track to become the largest U.S. market for data centers within the next two to three years, driven by a rapid rise in artificial-intelligence workloads that is reshaping power needs and project scale, according to a report released by Bloom Energy on Jan. 20, 2026. The California-based power company’s analysis, based on a survey of electric utilities and data-center developers conducted throughout much of last year, warns of a substantial increase in grid demand and a shift toward much larger individual facilities through 2035.

The report finds that data-center driven grid demand in Texas could exceed 40 gigawatts by 2028, up from an estimated maximum power demand of about 8 gigawatts in 2025. For context, the state grid’s peak energy demand in 2025 was roughly 94 gigawatts, a comparison that underscores how quickly data centers are changing consumption patterns. Bloom Energy’s materials note that one gigawatt is enough to energize about 700,000 homes for a year.

Bloom Energy also documents a growing concentration of capacity. The state currently hosts about 387 data centers scattered across Texas, but the report projects that by 2030 one in five facilities will exceed 1 gigawatt in maximum energy demand, rising to one in three by 2035. Those larger facilities reflect the escalating compute appetite of generative AI models and the clustering of hyperscale projects.

The company points to several commercial and regulatory drivers that have attracted developers to Texas: relatively inexpensive land, abundant and cheap natural gas, and a regulatory environment that has been more permissive toward natural-gas power and onsite gas-fired generation than states such as Oregon and California. Bloom Energy itself supplies onsite power generation solutions for data centers, a business context that the company says informs its interest in forecasting grid and onsite power trends.

The report includes visualizations and project references that illustrate the scale of new investments, including a rendering for an $800 million Meta campus planned for Temple, Texas, and images connected to a multibuilding OpenAI campus under construction in Abilene, where eight data-center buildings have been planned.

Bloom Energy’s conclusions carry significant implications for grid operators, regulators and local communities. Rapidly rising data-center demand will pressure transmission planning, reliability margins and permitting processes at both the state and municipal level. The company’s survey-based methodology provides direct input from utilities and developers, but the published materials do not disclose detailed sample sizes, survey instruments or weighting strategies, leaving questions about the precision of the timing and magnitude of some projections.

Energy planners, ERCOT and regional utilities will face near-term choices about investments in transmission, generation and interconnection procedures that could determine whether new capacity is met through grid upgrades, onsite generators, or a mix of both. Developers and state officials will also confront land-use, environmental and workforce questions as projects accelerate.

Further reporting should seek the full Bloom Energy report to review methodology and regional breakdowns, and confirmation from ERCOT and individual developers on project timelines and plans for commissioning and interconnection.