Vantage Data Centers has broken ground on its Frontier campus in Shackelford County, Texas, marking a major expansion tied to Oracle and OpenAI’s Stargate initiative. The Frontier campus will span approximately 1,200 acres, and include 10 single-story data center facilities with a combined capacity of 1.4 GW. The first facility on the campus is scheduled to enter service in the second half of 2026.
The company announced the milestone on LinkedIn, describing the project as a cornerstone for advancing large-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure while delivering substantial economic benefits to the region. Shackelford County is located around 125 miles west of Fort Worth and near Abilene, an emerging hub for hyperscale and AI-focused data center development. The development will encompass 3.7 million square feet (343,740 square meters) of data center space.
The site is being designed to support next-generation AI workloads, incorporating both air, and liquid-cooling technologies, and enabling rack densities exceeding 250 kWs. According to the Vantage Data Center website, each building will feature three meet-me rooms to support network connectivity and interconnection requirements,
Reports first surfaced in July that Vantage was pursuing a large data center campus in Texas, though details were initially limited. The company formally unveiled plans for the Frontier site in August, estimating total investment at more than US $25 billion. In October, Oracle and OpenAI were officially linked to the project as part of a broader set of Stargate-related data center announcements across the United States.
The new campus is part of OpenAI and Oracle’s previously announced partnership to invest up to 4.5 GW of additional Stargate capacity, and is the Midwest site that was recently announced as part of OpenAI’s Stargate expansion. Construction will begin soon, and is scheduled for completion in 2028.
Readers would recall that in October this year, Vantage Data Centers, along with OpenAI, and Oracle, had announced plans to develop a data center campus outside Milwaukee in Port Washington, Wisconsin. That campus will feature four data centers providing close to a GW of AI capacity.