QTS Data Centers, a US-based data center operator owned by Blackstone, and Lancium, an energy technology and infrastructure company operating out of Texas, have announced plans for a data center campus on Lancium’s Clean Campus in Hall County near Turkey, Texas. The campus could house up to 11 data center buildings across about 465 acres and the companies expect it to bring more than US$ 10 billion in capital investment to the region.
Lancium and QTS will fund 100 percent of the energy infrastructure improvements the campus requires. QTS will design, build, and operate the data center buildings. As the campus owner, Lancium will provide the electrical and civil infrastructure for the site. The energy firm also plans to bring its own power to the site through a battery storage system and solar resources, according to a press release.
“In partnership with QTS, Hall County and the City of Turkey, we are bringing this investment to Hall County in a way that benefits the grid and provides long-term economic and societal benefit to the community. We’re proud to partner with QTS on this project,” said Michael McNamara, Founder and CEO, Lancium.
“We are excited about the potential to expand into the special communities of Turkey and Hall County,” said Tag Greason and David Robey, Co-CEOs of QTS.
QTS says that the campus will deploy a closed-loop cooling system, reducing the impact campus operations have on water supplies. The company expects to draw all the campus’s water from on-site wells or truck it in from approved external sources. It says it will not draw water from Turkey’s municipal water supply.
Earlier this month, w.media reported that QTS walked away from the Digital Gateway data center project in Prince William County, Virginia, which would have run to as many as 37 buildings and a maximum 5 GW in capacity. Lawsuits from the Oak Valley Homeowners Association, the American Battlefield Trust, and local residents voided the rezoning, and Compass Datacenters abandoned the project before QTS dropped its final appeal.
This announcement comes just over two weeks after Texas Governor Greg Abbott called for an end to the tax breaks data centers receive in the state and a ban on new AI facilities in rural neighborhoods. “We must prohibit them from building AI data centers in rural Texas neighborhoods, and we must eliminate the tax break they are getting,” the governor said, according to CBS News Texas. He added that developers should be responsible for funding their own projects in the state.
Aside from bringing its own power, avoiding municipal water, and funding its own infrastructure, the project will create up to 7,000 jobs at peak construction and approximately 350 permanent positions, including QTS employees, maintenance, security, and tenant staff. The QTS and Lancium package happens to answer most of what Abbott has demanded of developers. Whether that is enough to head off local opposition is the open question.