Data centers in Carson County, Texas: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Carson County, outside Amarillo, is the site of Project Matador, a data center and power campus that developer Fermi America calls the world's largest, built on land leased from Texas Tech next to the Pantex nuclear weapons plant about 35 miles northeast of the city. Fermi plans up to 17,000 megawatts from gas turbines, four nuclear reactors and other sources; the reactors are not yet licensed. On August 10, 2026, Fermi signed a 15-year, $6.5 billion lease with AI cloud provider TensorWave for 222 megawatts of the campus, to be delivered starting in the second half of 2027, though the lease still depends on financing that has not closed.

Carson County's commissioners approved a tax abatement instead of full taxes: Fermi pays the county $3 per square foot of buildings and $2,500 to $2,750 per megawatt each year, in exchange for a promise of 600 jobs over 15 phases. County Judge Dan Looten said the county already handles heavy daily traffic from Pantex's own workforce and was not overly worried about more. Amarillo agreed to sell Fermi up to 2.5 million gallons of water a day for 20 years, at twice the rate other industrial customers pay, though Fermi's own IPO filing said it may eventually need up to 5.5 million gallons a day; neither contract says what happens if it goes over. "Wealth here is the water," said Will Masters, a founder of the nonprofit Ogallala Life. "If the water is not here, this area is impoverished."

In February 2026, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved air permits for the campus's gas-fired power plant and denied a hearing request from Panhandle Taxpayers for Transparency, whose founder Michael Ford said the group would appeal. Member Kendra Seawright said a hearing would have shown "how much the pollution from that affects communities." The federal government has not yet licensed the project's four planned nuclear reactors.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.