Sunland Park, New Mexico, is not a notably online community. Retirees have settled in mobile homes around the small border town, just over the state line from El Paso. Some don’t own computers — they make their way to the air-conditioned public library when they need to look something up.
Soon, though, the local economy could center around the internet: County officials have approved up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds to help developers build a sprawling data center campus just down the road.
“Project Jupiter” is the latest in a tidal wave of data center projects popping up across the country. Once built, the giant buildings full of computer hardware work 24/7 to power artificial intelligence and web searches for tech companies. Developers BorderPlex Digital Assets and STACK Infrastructure have been the public faces of Project Jupiter — but last week, after local officials voted to support the effort, tech giants OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank revealed that they’ll be the clients for the campus. In a press release, they announced that the project is part of their Stargate initiative, which includes plans to invest $500 billion in new AI infrastructure in the next few years…