Amazon is joining the host of companies opening data centers on San Antonio’s far West Side.
The tech giant is planning to build a 109,000-square-foot facility at 2200 Texas 211, according to a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The data center will cost an estimated $65 million and is expected to be completed by September 2028.
Amazon Data Services Inc. purchased the 37.5 acres on the far West Side in 2020, according to property records.
This is the third data center that the Seattle-based company has filed plans for in March. Amazon also is planning to open a 141,979-square-foot facility at 1535 NW Crossroads on the West Side and a 119,407-square-foot data center at 12807 Donop Road on the Southeast Side, according to filings with TDLR.
West Bexar and Medina counties have become hubs for data centers because of their access to power and fiber infrastructure and the area’s flat topography. Companies like Microsoft Corp., Vantage Data Centers, Valero Energy Corp. and CloudHQ all have staked claims in the two areas, taking advantage of the rising demand for data center capacity amid the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud-based technologies.
Amazon Web Services “hosts many of the world’s most-used online services, providing behind-the-scenes cloud computing infrastructure to many government departments, universities and businesses,” according to the Associated Press. Three of its facilities in the Middle East were recently damaged by Iranian drone strikes.
Texas has emerged as the fastest-growing data center market in the country as developers race to build facilities to power the surge in demand for artificial intelligence.
In West Texas, Meta announced last week that it was boosting its investment to $10 billion from $1.5 billion for a facility in El Paso, with the goal of reaching 1-gigawatt capacity ahead of its projected opening in 2028. In Abilene, Microsoft is taking over a data center construction project, stepping in after OpenAI declined to pursue it, the Associated Press reported last week. The project involves two facilities, expected to supply 2.1 gigawatts of computing capacity, and an on-site power plant. It will neighbor an even larger computing campus for OpenAI and Oracle, the flagship project for Stargate.
But the data center boom has its detractors.
In Texas, residents worried about the facilities’ strain on resources such as water and energy have turned up at meetings to protest planned developments. Amid the pushback, the Texas Legislature is taking a closer look at the downsides of data centers, with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who controls the Texas Senate, directing lawmakers to “recommend ways to balance (the) economic development benefits of this growth against the impacts on landowners, private property rights, water infrastructure and community integrity.” The Texas House has announced similar priorities.
In Washington, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders have introduced a bill to pause the growth of the facilities until national safeguards are in place, although it’s not expected to advance in either the House or the Senate.