Data centers in Travis County, Texas: 6 projects mapped

6 projects tracked

5 operating

1 with no stage on record

39 MW from the 2 active projects that report a figure

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Tracked projectBigger dot, more power6 sites shown

Austin has no large-scale AI data center inside city limits yet, and on August 27, 2026 the City Council voted unanimously to make sure none arrives without its say. The resolution orders staff to write land-use, site-development and business rules, and until those rules exist, any large-scale project needs council approval. Austin Energy counts 10 smaller data centers in the city, each drawing 1 to 20 megawatts; the land code has no rules above the state's 75-megawatt large-load threshold.

Several council members want a full ban. "We won't wait for a crisis to happen here, which is why today we are pursuing a full ban on large-scale data centers in Austin," said Council Member Vanessa Fuentes. Council Member Ryan Alter said it would take "a very high bar" for him to approve a local data center. Mayor Kirk Watson asked for "legal, durable and enforceable rules," while resident Brad Massingill warned a blanket ban risks "one lawsuit to strip that away."

The county's biggest computing site sits outside the city's reach, at Tesla's Gigafactory Texas in unincorporated Travis County. Tesla is building Cortex, a cluster InsideEVs described in 2024 as more than 100,000 Nvidia GPUs training its self-driving software and Optimus robots, apparently needing 500 megawatts in future. The Austin American-Statesman reported 16,500 employees on a site that could grow to 3,500 acres, with a new building for Tesla's Terafab chip project under construction; Tesla did not respond to the paper.

Elsewhere in the county, Skybox Datacenters operates a 30-megawatt building in Pflugerville, the Austin Chronicle reported.

Water is where Tesla and the data center debate meet. Austin's Water Forward Task Force heard in June 2026 that Tesla had climbed from the utility's fifth-largest customer to its third in two years, with the five largest customers using about 4.5 billion gallons in 2025. In July, the council asked the city manager to study stricter conservation rules for high-water-use industries, including large data centers; those recommendations are due in December 2026.

Data center projects on record in Travis County

Grouped by the town each site sits in. The report above may name projects that have no record here yet.

Austin6

Project	Company	Status	Power
Core Scientific AustinAustin	Core Scientific	Operating	20 MW
CyrusOne Austin AUS2-AUS3Austin	CyrusOne	Operating	19 MW	Source off site ↗
Digital Realty Austin (7620 Metro)Austin	Digital Realty	Operating	Not reported	Source off site ↗
Giga Texas DatacenterAustin	Tesla	Operating	Not reported
Lambda Austin (Met Center)Austin	Switch	Not reported	Not reported
Switch Smith School Rd (Austin)Austin	Switch	Operating	Not reported

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.