Data centers are popping up across the Lone Star State, and now two new artificial intelligence data center projects totaling nearly $500 million are set for parts of Central Texas. New filings on the same day with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) are revealing the progress of two massive data center projects north of Austin.
The next phase of a massive $470 million AI data center is currently underway in Burlington, a Milam County city between Austin and Waco, according to the filings. Meanwhile, construction is set to begin this summer on a new $20 million data center near Dell Technologies’ headquarters in Round Rock, a north Austin suburb.
Both projects, registered in TDLR on April 15, will bring a huge economic boost to each Central Texas area through tax benefits and local job creation. However, some Texans in surrounding small towns are worried about the long-term impacts data centers could have on their communities, including city water and state grid electricity use.
OpenAI’s Texas data center
The first TDR filing is for “Freebird Data Center Phase 1,” a new hyperscale data center in Milam County linked to OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research and development company that owns ChatGPT. Construction on the data center first began in October 2025 as part of a larger $500 billion Stargate Project announced last year by President Donald Trump…