John McWilliams of Cushman & Wakefield describes Texas as "the one to watch right now," citing heavy investor interest. It is the most consistently named market in 2026 coverage, and it is named for reasons that stack.
Why Texas
- Its own grid. ERCOT operates largely independently of the two national interconnections. That changes the regulatory path for a large new load relative to most of the country.
- Streamlined permitting. Build.inc names Texas alongside Virginia and Georgia as having workable pathways for data center use.
- Land at scale. Parcels of hundreds of contiguous acres still exist at prices that have not detached from reality.
- Generation mix. Substantial wind and solar, plus gas, in a state accustomed to building.
- No state income tax, and a general posture toward large industrial investment.
Where it is happening
Dallas-Fort Worth — the established Texas market, and the most competitive.
Houston — industrial land, existing heavy power infrastructure, Gulf fiber.
Austin and San Antonio — named as a secondary market pairing. Tech presence in Austin, and a corridor between them that has drawn interest.
El Paso — named in current market coverage, with its own grid characteristics at the far western edge of ERCOT.
Abilene — the one that changed the conversation. OpenAI's Stargate project chose Abilene, and the site appeared on a federal list of 16 sites. A West Texas town of roughly 125,000 became a reference point for what is possible outside a major metro.
Rural Texas generally — IDC's Ashish Nadkarni cites rural areas for cheap land and fewer power and water constraints. That is the opportunity for landowners who do not sit near a metro.
What this means if you own Texas land
The Abilene precedent matters more than any single deal. It established that a project of national significance will go to a small West Texas city if the power works. Metro proximity is no longer the gate it once was.
What still gates it: transmission voltage and distance, ERCOT interconnection position, water where evaporative cooling is planned, and whether your county has formed a view on data centers.
West and Central Texas landowners with large contiguous acreage near 230kV or 345kV transmission are in the most interesting position in the country right now. That is not a reason to expect a particular number — it is a reason to find out exactly what you have. The nine-point screen →
The constraint worth naming
Water. Much of West Texas is arid, and groundwater is governed by rules that differ meaningfully from surface water elsewhere. Where a project plans evaporative cooling, water availability becomes a real gate. Where liquid or immersion cooling is planned, far less so. What data centers actually use →
Market characteristics as publicly reported by Cushman & Wakefield, IDC, Build.inc and Data Center Knowledge, through 2026. Not an assessment of any specific parcel.