Local officials are privy to the proposal but lack details on key factors like water use
PRESIDIO COUNTY — Marfa grasslands, long inhabited by grazing cattle, could soon be the site of a multi-million dollar data center established to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence if preliminary plans progress. Presidio County and City of Marfa officials have recently gleaned project details from Open Origin, the energy generation and distribution company developing the proposal.
The potential location for the large-scale operation is 80,000 acres southeast of Marfa on land containing the historic MacGuire and Antelope Springs ranches, currently owned by Texas Mountain Cattle Company, Brad Kelley’s LLC. The land sale has yet to be finalized.
Open Origin — who declined an interview request but provided a statement from CEO Wesley Powell —said it is in the “early stages” of exploring a potential data center project in Presidio County.
“While details are still emerging, our priority is to work closely with local stakeholders to ensure the project reflects community needs and values,” Powell wrote. “We appreciate the community’s interest and look forward to engaging with the public as a next step in the process.”
An AI data center in Presidio County could have broad reaching economic, cultural and environmental implications, chief among the latter being groundwater extraction.
Open Origin is one of many companies responding to a Request for Proposals (RFP) put out by The Stargate Project, a private joint venture led by OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle that plans to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure over the next four years. The ambitious initiative to build 20 new data centers in the U.S. was announced by President Trump on his second day in office.
The widespread use of AI is increasing the nation’s electrical appetite — an AI internet search requires 10 times the amount of energy used in a traditional internet search — with some companies like Open Origin turning to renewable energy as a solution.
According to county officials, Open Origin intends to produce all of the power needed to run the AI data center on site with renewable energy, as opposed to using the existing power grid. Acres upon acres of solar panels, cleaned by robots, will likely be installed. The company may also pursue the creation of a “green ammonia” plant, a carbon-neutral fuel, and utilize the property’s existing South Orient Rail Line for exports, according to County Commissioner David Beebe. It is not clear how the company plans to manage the intermittency of solar power and whether the green ammonia operation is related.
Sources familiar with Open Origin’s plans that spoke to The Big Bend Sentinel indicated that the operation could likely not be visible from any public roads and could be tucked back into the expansive ranch, potentially somewhere off of Nopal Road.
Brian Korgel, director of the University of Texas Energy Institute, said the current industry trend is for data centers to be built close to energy resources, making West Texas an appealing region due to its natural resources, access to natural gas pipelines, cheap land and more.
“Out in West Texas, there’s a lot of sun, a lot of wind and land, and also a lot of natural gas. The challenge is connecting the data centers with those energy resources right now in Texas,” Korgel said. “There are a lot of data center build-outs in West Texas being announced, and that’s the reason, partly.”
One natural resource in short supply in the desert — that data centers require a considerable amount of to cool down heat-generating computer systems — is water.
A county official who met with Open Origin said they intend to pump 800 acre feet of groundwater annually for their operation, which equates to about 714,000 gallons of water a day. By comparison, the City of Marfa pumps 550 acre feet a year, and Village Farms tomato growers — the largest operating permit holder in Presidio County — pumps 400 acre feet a year.
According to a report by the Texas Water Development Board, total pumping for the Igneous Aquifer, which supplies much of the tri-county region’s water supply, ranged from 8,000 to 4,000 acre-feet per year from 1980 to 2020, meaning an additional 800 acre feet could amount to a 10 to 20 percent increase in pumping annually.
But the company may be considering water reuse, according to Beebe. The property does contain the City of Marfa wastewater treatment plant that lies across from El Cosmico off of Highway 67. The wastewater is currently lightly treated then pumped to ponds where it is left to evaporate, meaning there may be an opportunity to upgrade that facility and reuse the wastewater.
It is unclear what year Open Origin was founded. The company’s website states that they operate a Salinas Piros, New Mexico, green ammonia plant, which would appear to be south of Albuquerque, with plans for another plant in Maharashtra, India, in development.
Beebe said he met with a handful of individuals from the company on Zoom, one of which was Powell. In a video on their website Open Origin Chief Vision Officer Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri states that the company’s strategy is to work in “remote areas where we can really benefit local communities.”
Beebe said company representatives told him the new AI data center could create 900 to 1,100 new jobs in the Marfa area. Questions regarding whether those will be local hires, whether workers will be brought in, whether they will seek housing locally, or build their own campus, are still up in the air. Concerns over the Marfa Lights viewshed and dark skies have also been voiced by local officials.
Data centers have made national headlines as of late for touting local economic booms yet generating fewer jobs than promised. There are not currently any jobs posted on Open Origin’s website. But, for a small town like Marfa, whose population is around 1,700 people and where spring break crowds result in hours-long wait times for local restaurants, 200 new residents would be easier to absorb than 1,000 plus.
There is an incentive for Presidio County officials to support the potential AI data center given the border county’s dire financial straits. It is limited to a maximum 3.5% property tax increase every year — which, because property taxes drive the county budget, means commissioners are limited to a maximum 3.5% budget increase every year. However, new property added to the tax rolls, like a high-dollar data center, does not count towards the 3.5% budget increase limit for one year.
Last year, the county only added .05% of new property to its tax rolls. Growth, specifically in the form of entirely new builds, is the key to raising revenue and getting ahead of inflation, according to Beebe.
“It would be, in my opinion, a good economic opportunity for Marfa and Presidio County,” County Judge Joe Portillo said. “I think it would generate some very high paying jobs. It’s an investment. It’s using state of the art technology and state of the art solar, state of the art energy production.”
Beebe said the one “tool” in the county’s “quiver” they could consider is offering Open Origin tax abatements as an incentive to conserve water use. For example, if Open Origin comes in and drops “a billion worth of infrastructure in a year,” the county could give them a 10% tax abatement contingent on the company not exceeding a certain amount of water usage a month.
“Texas counties don’t really have a way to control private property outside of cities, other than we have tried to empower our underground water conservation district to have some say in what they call in California the biggest straw problem,” Beebe said.
Longevity of the potential AI data center — regarding the AI and green energy markets — is also of concern. Korgel said the economics of these projects are, in part, driven by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act which provides tax credits for green initiatives like solar. But, given the policy and regulatory uncertainty of renewables under the current federal administration, it is unclear whether some projects may be derailed.
In the meantime, data center companies are “absorbing a premium” on power and electricity. “Those companies are just trying to build the data centers, and they’re paying premiums for all kinds of things just because they need it,” Korgel said. “At some point people have to sort of get real about the finances.”
Texas’ energy demand could more than double by 2031, according to a report released this month by the nonprofit corporation that operates the state’s power grid, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). “You can’t pick technology winners and losers and meet that need,” Korgel said.
Beebe said the AI data center has the potential to bring about lasting change to the region in the wake of the economic collapse of the cattle ranching industry, but ongoing projects like the international bridge are also paramount, and could result in more long-term economic growth for Presidio County. He said he’s wary, given the rapid advance of technology, that a potential data center could culminate in obsolete Central Processing Units (CPUs), deserted concrete slabs, falling down buildings and a subdivision of the property.
“What happens then?” Beebe said. “Because if we’re going to get a tax benefit over this, that’s great and all, and we need it. But I don’t want to ruin this piece of paradise just to have it be used for five years. If we’re going to do this, we need a 20- to 30-year project so that we can really, honestly benefit from it.”
The Sentinel will continue to cover this story as more details become available.
