Originally published at: TIDBITS: INSANE DATA CENTERS, AND SPEAKING OF MR FINK
Apropos of today’s main blog, ponder these stories shared by V.T.: Project Matador Exposed: Texas’ Insane AI Mega-Data Center Will Devour 18 Million Sq Ft, 17 Gigawatts of Power, 1 BILLION Gallons of Water a Year & Blast 120dB Noise OVER 3,000 SURVEILLANCE CENTERS BUILT OR UNDER CONSTRUCTION And there’s this story about the aptly-surnamed…
Adding a January 2026 Politico piece to the list, mainly for the photos. It seems America needs this kind of maverick cowboy to gitter done; at least that’s my take away.
From the article:
Trump, atoms, AI and the Texas data center gusher
“The idea for Fermi came from Neugebauer, a chatty and confident 54-year-old investor from Dallas. He made his fortune as the co-founder of private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners, which invested heavily in Texas oil and gas.”
"Through his family’s real estate connections, he knew of a parcel of land in Carson County owned by Texas Tech University. The prairie land about 20 miles outside of Amarillo, in the heart of Texas’ northern Panhandle, was used for cattle research and still hosted prefabricated homes for workers at the Department of Energy’s Pantex plant, where the government assembles and dismantles nuclear weapons. Rattlesnakes slithered across the land.
To Neugebauer, it was “the best spot on planet Earth to manufacture electrons.” It sits at a nexus of natural gas pipelines and is near the gas-rich Permian Basin. The presence of Pantex means the site is secure and has nuclear safety infrastructure. (emphasis mine).
Location, location, location, eh? It has everything… except water.
Anytime I hear Amarillo or Texas Panhandle, my mind goes back to the Smokehouse Creek fire, which wasn’t too far away to the northeast. That fire torched more than a million acres in two days (!). Just saying it out loud, so many stacked functions these days. Perhaps the ranchers needed to go so the water didn’t get consumed upstream, so to say.
