The artificial intelligence-fueled data center construction boom is spreading through West Texas, where oil and gas development has held economic sway for decades.
Big data centers are planned near Fort Stockton and Barstow, Texas. Both areas are under 250 miles east of El Paso. And centers are under construction in Abilene and near Albany, Texas — areas just under 500 miles from El Paso, on the eastern and northern boundaries of West Texas.
Those are in the works as Meta Platforms, the company that operates Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, begins construction of its big data center complex in Northeast El Paso, and a Chicago contractor has been hired to begin work on a huge data center campus planned in the Santa Teresa, New Mexico area, on El Paso’s west edge…