OpenAI Stargate New Mexico (Project Jupiter) data center, Santa Teresa, New Mexico

Project Jupiter, the OpenAI Stargate data center campus in Santa Teresa, is being built on a 1,400-acre site in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, near the Texas border. It is under construction for Oracle and OpenAI to train artificial intelligence models, built by BorderPlex Digital Assets and STACK Infrastructure, and it has dominated public comment at county commission meetings for 11 months.

The project began as a "digital infrastructure campus" that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced in February 2025 with BorderPlex Digital Assets, promising 1,000 new jobs. Epoch AI puts its planned capacity at 2.2 gigawatts, with completion targeted for the end of 2028.

The county's money is at the center of the fight. On September 19, 2025, after a closed meeting, Doña Ana County commissioners voted to pledge $165 billion worth of industrial revenue bonds for the project, and the county issued a grading permit on October 2. Under the bond contract the county holds title to the project properties and leases them to the developer.

Residents and groups have gone to court over how that was done: the Empowerment Congress of Doña Ana County sued over the tax incentives in October 2025, and the Foundation for Open Government sued in June 2026 over records the county withheld. In July 2026 the state Department of Justice opened an investigation into fraudulent public comments submitted in support of the project, and the commission voted unanimously to end County Manager Scott Andrews' contract.

Power and water are the other fights. The developers now plan to run the campus on natural gas fuel cells by Bloom Energy rather than gas turbines, a change announced in April 2026 that would still emit about 10.1 million tons of greenhouse gases a year. State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard denied right-of-way permits for part of the gas pipeline across state trust land in March and again in July. The Center for Biological Diversity says a new well drilled for Project Jupiter had used 103 million gallons of fresh water since April.

The anger boiled over on July 28, 2026, when Chair Manny Sanchez capped public comment at 30 people and two minutes each, and protesters streamed to the front of the chamber chanting "Let us speak." Officers from the county's contracted security firm, eight plainclothes Oracle security staff and eventually 10 sheriff's deputies were in the room, and three people were arrested. "You have been played," Cindy Haber told the commissioners.

Neeshia Macanowicz of Stop Project Jupiter said most of the people who got to speak came from El Paso, Juárez and Albuquerque, while residents of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa could not. At the same meeting, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure vice president Mahesh Thiagarajan promised 7,000 jobs at the peak, and Stack's Bobby Hollis said close to 3,000 workers were on site, including 300 county residents.

"We need to see the numbers. We need to see the work. We need to know what you're doing with the water, the air, the noise, the heat," Commissioner Susie Kimble said.

The deciding permit now sits with the state. On September 17, 2026 the New Mexico Supreme Court denied petitions from the Center for Biological Diversity and New Energy Economy and lifted its pause on the air quality and water permit proceedings. The Environment Department must appoint a new hearing officer to decide whether the fuel cells may release emissions, after the last one recused himself in August, and the new timeline is not yet clear.

"We hope that what happens next is simple: A fair hearing," said Mariel Nanasi of New Energy Economy. Thiagarajan has said there is no immediate contingency plan if the permit is denied, other than trying to buy power from El Paso Electric. On September 24, 2026, Bloomberg reported that Oracle had sent the developer a force majeure notice to defer payments if the campus misses its 2028 date, while Oracle said the project remains on its planned schedule.