The Governor has asked Texas regulators to examine an increasingly important question: as data centers consume power at an unprecedented scale, how much of the infrastructure required to support them are developers prepared to provide themselves?
Fermi’s entire plan is built around bringing our own power.
We recognized that power is the limiting factor in the growth of artificial intelligence. The traditional electric grid alone, will not be able to deliver the scale, speed, and reliability that the next generation of computing requires.
The governor clearly sees this, and so do we, which is why our Project Matador is being built as a private, behind-the-meter, system.
We did not start with a data center and then ask where the power would come from. We started with power. That distinction is increasingly important.
Governor Abbott noted that ERCOT is currently considering approximately 474 gigawatts of requests to connect to the Texas grid, with approximately 90% associated with data centers. His directive now requires additional verification before data centers advancing through ERCOT’s interconnection process can move forward and specifically asks developers to disclose the extent to which they provide their own power.
This is why the governor’s pause does not negatively impact Project Matador.
Fermi is developing multi-gigawatt power generation directly at the campus. Our private, behind-the-meter strategy is intended to pair large-scale computing demand with purpose-built, power generation rather than requiring the public grid to shoulder that burden.
Throughout my career I have worked on large and complex infrastructure projects around the world. The projects succeed because they plan for change and take input from all stakeholders. This is what the governor is signaling.
Beyond bringing our own power, we are also aligned with the Governor’s emphasis on responsible development: water use, community impact, ownership transparency, and compliance. We support that approach. Projects of this scale should be held to a high standard, and Fermi intends to fully comply with all requirements applicable to our development.
We began with the belief that power would become the defining constraint on the economy and that the companies capable of solving that constraint directly would have a competitive advantage in the next phase of American technology development.
Texas is now pushing the industry in that same direction by telling the data center industry that future growth cannot simply depend on taking ever-larger amounts of power from the public grid. We think the governor is doing the right thing, and we will continue to provide the solution by bringing our own power.
