AI boom fuels another major Bastrop County data center

May 28-Data center developer EdgeConneX is expanding a billion-plus-dollar project in Bastrop County as Texas officials continue to debate the industry's growing power and water demands.

The Virginia-based developer is slated to begin construction next month on the second of what will be two massive data center campuses in greater Bastrop County.

The company is building two one-story data center buildings on a nearly 180-acre property at 6682 Farm-to-Market 535 in Bastrop County near Cedar Creek, according to recent filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

The buildings will be about 730,000 square feet and cost roughly $700 million to build, according to the filing, representing an approximately $1.4 billion total investment from the company.

Construction on the buildings is set to begin next month with completion expected by the end of 2028. Over the next 10 years, the project is expected to generate about $100 million for Bastrop Independent School District and roughly $7 million for the county, according to company officials.

The new construction joins EdgeConneX's ongoing 112-acre campus, whose first building is set to be completed sometime next month.

That two-story, 578,000-square-foot data center building is located nearby at the northeast corner of Farm-to-Market 535 and Wolf Lane in Cedar Creek and will cost about $440 million, based on permit filings. The campus is expected to include two additional 96-megawatt data centers and one 48-megawatt facility, according to the company's website.

Data centers popping up across Central Texas

The two massive data center campuses come as a wave of data center development expandsTexas.

Texas' grid manager, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, has estimated energy demand will surge more than 70% by 2031, driven largely by planned data center growth. Although many of the proposed projects may never come to fruition, ERCOT estimates data centers' energy demand will exceed 22,000 megawatts by 2030. During extreme heat, 1 megawatt can power 200 to 250 Texas homes.

There were more than 70 projects operating or in the works between Temple and San Antonio as of May 2026, with about 5,600 megawatts currently under construction in the Austin and San Antonio metro areas.

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, companies are pouring billions into the infrastructure needed to support AI. Companies including OpenAI, Tesla Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Apple Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are projected to spend more than $650 billion on AI infrastructure this year alone.

But with that growth, there has also been significant pushback over the developments' massive power and water requirements.

Water, power demands fuel backlash

An average 100-megawatt U.S. data center consumes about 2 million liters of water daily - roughly the same as 6,500 households - according to an April report from the International Energy Agency. The report projects global data center water use could reach 1.2 billion liters annually by 2030, while rising electricity demand could also drive up power costs.

EdgeConneX has not disclosed projected water use for its Bastrop County campuses. The company said last year it aims to achieve "global water neutrality" across its data centers by 2030 and plans to rely primarily on dry or no-water cooling systems. Experts say those systems reduce cooling water demand but can still increase overall water and power use because they require more electricity.

Texas stands to gain billions in investment and thousands of construction jobs from data center growth, but local governments remain divided over how to regulate the projects.

Bastrop County Commissioners Court awarded EdgeConneX a 10-year property tax abatement, with commissioners arguing the projects could ease the tax burden on residents. Opponents said on social media the developments target some of the county's poorest areas and waste taxpayer dollars.

"I've got Elon (Musk) owning half of my township, and now data centers popping up all over the place. I [expletive] hate this," one resident posted on Reddit earlier this year about the data center.

Several of Musk's companies have operations in the county, approximately 14 miles north of EdgeConneX's second 180-acre data center campus. Musk has no ties to the data center and it is not known if any of his companies could be future customers.

But other counties, such as Hill County, have proposed or even passed pauses on data center development as they gather more information on the impacts to resources. Last week, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller called for a statewide temporary moratorium on large data center developments until state officials assess the impacts on the state's electric grid, water supplies, agricultural land and rural communities.

The City of Austin is currently weighing a potential crackdown on data center development amid concerns over power and water. There are about 20 data centers located in the Austin metro.

Data centers are set to be a hot topic when the state Legislature reconvenes in January, as both House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have highlighted the issue as a priority. Concerns over data centers are crossing party lines, especially as predominantly Republican-led rural counties could face the biggest impact from the facilities.

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