The future of data

Google's $40B investment in Texas data centers includes energy infrastructure

Google is investing in Texas. Courtesy of Google

Google is investing a huge chunk of money in Texas: According to a release, the company will invest $40 billion on cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, with the development of new data centers in Armstrong and Haskell counties.

The company announced its intentions at a meeting on November 14 attended by federal, state, and local leaders including Gov. Greg Abbott who called it "a Texas-sized investment."

Google will open two new data center campuses in Haskell County and a data center campus in Armstrong County.

Additionally, the first building at the company’s Red Oak campus in Ellis County is now operational. Google is continuing to invest in its existing Midlothian campus and Dallas cloud region, which are part of the company’s global network of 42 cloud regions that deliver high-performance, low-latency services that businesses and organizations use to build and scale their own AI-powered solutions.

Energy demands

Google is committed to responsibly growing its infrastructure by bringing new energy resources onto the grid, paying for costs associated with its operations, and supporting community energy efficiency initiatives.

One of the new Haskell data centers will be co-located with — or built directly alongside — a new solar and battery energy storage plant, creating the first industrial park to be developed through Google’s partnership with Intersect and TPG Rise Climate announced last year.

Google has contracted to add more than 6,200 megawatts (MW) of net new energy generation and capacity to the Texas electricity grid through power purchase agreements (PPAs) with energy developers such as AES Corporation, Enel North America, Intersect, Clearway, ENGIE, SB Energy, Ørsted, and X-Elio.

Water demands

Google’s three new facilities in Armstrong and Haskell counties will use air-cooling technology, limiting water use to site operations like kitchens. The company is also contributing $2.6 million to help Texas Water Trade create and enhance up to 1,000 acres of wetlands along the Trinity-San Jacinto Estuary. Google is also sponsoring a regenerative agriculture program with Indigo Ag in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and an irrigation efficiency project with N-Drip in the Texas High Plains.

In addition to the data centers, Google is committing $7 million in grants to support AI-related initiatives in healthcare, energy, and education across the state. This includes helping CareMessage enhance rural healthcare access; enabling the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Tech University to address energy challenges that will arise with AI, and expanding AI training for Texas educators and students through support to Houston City College.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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A View From HETI

The company's technology extracts critical minerals like iodine, lithium and copper from oilfield-produced water. Photo courtesy Altillion

Houston-based startup Altillion has secured $5 million in seed funding to accelerate the commercialization of its proprietary IRIS and ALIX technologies, which convert oilfield-produced water into valuable minerals.

San Francisco-based EIC Rose Rock and Houston-based Flathead Forge led the round. Altillion says the funding will go toward pilot facilities and commercial deployments as the company looks to scale in the U.S.

“Altillion’s efficient and scalable technologies are needed more than ever to reshape critical mineral recovery and facilitate beneficial use of oilfield brines,” Jay Keener, Altillion’s CEO and co-founder, said in a news release. “We’re uniquely positioned to provide a stable, domestic supply of the critical minerals needed for electronics, batteries, healthcare and national defense technologies. This investment from EIC Rose Rock and Flathead Forge enables us to strategically accelerate this impact and is very timely given the current geopolitical dynamics.”

Altillion's IRIS and ALIX platforms extract minerals like iodine, lithium and copper from oilfield-produced water, geothermal brines and salars. This process allows companies to unlock new sources of revenue while also boosting the domestic critical minerals supply chain. The company announced earlier this summer that it will launch a feasibility project in the Permian Basin and aims to develop a path to commercial-scale implementation in the field.

“We are excited to partner with Altillion to scale and deploy these world-class technologies to access the vast wealth hidden in wastewater,” David Clouse, Managing Director of EIC Rose Rock, added in the release. “With Altillion, we’re expanding our ability to empower the energy industry to domestically source the critical minerals America needs for a robust economy and supply chain.”

Altillion was founded by Keener and COO Scott Buckwald in 2023. Keener previously founded KDH Trading, where Buckwald also serves as COO, according to his LinkedIn page.

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