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Texas saddles up for data center clash

OpenAI's flagship site in Abilene, Texas (OpenAI)

By SHELBY WEBB, JASON PLAUTZ AND KELSEY TAMBORRINO

The data center boom is hitting Texas. Data center politics haven’t been far behind.

The tech companies and electricity giants gathered here in the second-biggest state have heaped praise on the boom in construction of new data centers they see as the cure to everything from soaring power prices to sluggish economic growth.

But the pushback in communities that began in states like Virginia, home to the nation’s densest fleet of data centers, has spread to states like Texas, where it’s been taken up by lawmakers responding to a chorus of complaints that the giant facilities will drive up energy costs once they come online, consume water supplies and blight the landscape.

Read more at E&E News

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