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Data centers in Ector County, Texas: 2 projects mapped
The biggest data center planned in Ector County is Texas Critical Data Centers, a campus near Penwell in the west of the county, beside a Vistra gas plant that has now agreed to power it. It began in February 2025, when New Era Helium and the GPU cloud company Sharon AI announced that their joint venture had signed a letter of intent with GROW Odessa, the economic development corporation that owned the land, to buy 200 acres for a 250MW AI data center. The Odessa American printed the announcement, in which the companies described the site as close to fiber, two natural gas transmission lines and carbon dioxide pipelines, and said they hoped to bring a first phase online in late 2026. Data Center Dynamics has reported that the project was first pitched at 90MW before being enlarged to 250MW, that New Era bought out Sharon AI's half for $70 million in December 2025 while closing on another 203 acres, taking the campus to 438 acres, and that in April 2026 New Era signed a non-binding letter of intent with Stream Data Centers to develop and finance it.
On September 22, 2026 DCD reported that New Era, now called New Era Energy & Digital, had signed a 20-year agreement with Luminant, a Vistra subsidiary, for at least 207MW for the first phase, delivered straight from Vistra's 1.1GW gas-fired plant in Odessa, which sits immediately next to the site. Power is due to start flowing in the third quarter of 2027, and Vistra gets a five percent non-voting stake in the data center once it does. New Era's chief executive, Charlie Nelson, said the company now had the land, construction permits and contracted power, and described the site as "an attractive opportunity to any quality tenant currently in the market". No tenant has been announced.
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Local officials have backed it from the start. Tom Manskey, economic development director at the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, told the Odessa American the site was near where the Nacero, Summit and FutureGen projects would have gone had any been built, and that he expected this one to happen: "You can never be totally certain that a project this size will come to fruition, but certainly we're going to do everything we can to help them." He said three other data centers had expressed interest in the area, that the companies he was talking to employ between 35 and 75 people each, and that the county was not "eagerly recruiting crypto", which he said "can go away in the night". Ector County already has one: DCD lists a 207MW Cipher site operating in Odessa, which it described in March 2026 as apparently still a cryptomining site.
Opposition arrived at the Commissioners Court in August 2026. During public comment at the meeting where the court set its budget hearings, JoAnna Keese accused commissioners of being secretive and said she knew land in the county had already been cleared for a data center and that the project was "not just in talks", the Odessa American reported. Another speaker told the court not "to sell out and bow down you are elected to protect us", to applause. County Judge Dustin Fawcett repeatedly said the county has no ordinance-making authority and that public meetings would be held before the county made any agreement with a data center. Commissioner Mike Gardner said he did not disagree that data centers could be a problem and was not for tax abatements to lure them, but agreed the county could not tell landowners what to do with their property. Keese said it was the most information she had been given about data centers.
No figure has been reported for the water Texas Critical Data Centers would use, and no tax abatement for it has been reported either. That summer the court was also asked to hold a hearing on a tax abatement for EMPower USA, a roughly 120MW power plant planned on 20 acres along West Murphy Street, which Fawcett said is not a data center; the company asked for the hearing and vote to be pulled while it reworked its financing. What happens next for the data center is the promised public meetings, which have no announced date, and the first phase's power in 2027.
Data center projects on record in Ector County
Grouped by the town each site sits in. The report above may name projects that have no record here yet.
Ector County1
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas Critical Data CentersEctor CountyExact site not confirmed | New Era Energy & Digital | Approved | 250 MW |
Odessa1
| Project | Company | Status | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cipher OdessaOdessa | Cipher Digital | 207 MW |
Where this comes from
The reporting above was written from these. Open one and check it yourself.
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.