TEXAS — Texas is in a position to overtake Virginia as the world’s largest data center market by 2030, new research shows. The report from Jones Lang LaSalle attributes Texas’ data center growth in part to the Lone Star State’s business-friendly environment.
“The data center sector has officially entered hyperdrive,” JLL managing director Andy Cvengros said in a news release.
JLL reports that more than half of what they call extraordinary construction volume is happening in “frontier markets,” which are markets outside of established hubs like the Silicon Valley or Dallas-Fort Worth.
Some of these frontier markets are places like El Paso, Amarillo and San Marcos.
The report states that data center growth in Texas also comes from the availability of energy resources and land. In some frontier markets, the usage of these resources by data centers has been a subject of contention.
A plan to rezone almost 200 acres of land for use as a new data center was rejected by the San Marcos City Council recently, after pushback from the community. In El Paso, residents have voiced concerns about water usage and potential effects on their neighborhoods.
The report from JLL also states that Texas alone accounts for 6.5 gigawatts of potential capacity currently under construction, saying that projects of even one gigawatt would have been eye-opening just a few years ago.