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A person holds a smartphone to ask a question to ChatGPT. More data centers are moving into Texas towns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Philip Dulian\/picture alliance via Getty Images\/dpa\/picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Data centers are popping up across the Lone Star State, and now two new artificial intelligence data center projects totaling nearly $500 million are set for parts of Central Texas. New filings on the same day with the\u00a0Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation <\/a>(TDLR)\u00a0are revealing the progress of two massive data center projects north of Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n The next phase of a massive $470 million AI data center is currently underway in Burlington, a Milam County city\u00a0between Austin and Waco, according to the filings. Meanwhile, construction is set to begin this summer on a new $20 million data center<\/a> near Dell Technologies’ headquarters in Round Rock, a north Austin suburb.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Both projects, registered in TDLR on April 15, will bring a huge economic boost to each Central Texas area through tax benefits and local job creation. However, some Texans in surrounding small towns are worried about the long-term impacts data centers<\/a> could have on their communities, including city water and state grid electricity use.\u00a0<\/p>\n OpenAI’s Texas data center\u00a0<\/p>\n The first\u00a0TDR filing\u00a0is for “Freebird Data Center Phase 1,” a new hyperscale data center in Milam County linked to OpenAI<\/a>, an\u00a0artificial intelligence research and development company that owns ChatGPT. Construction on the data center first\u00a0began in October 2025 as part of a larger $500 billion\u00a0Stargate Project<\/a> announced last year by President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Stargate is planning to build<\/a> five other data centers in Abilene, Ohio, New Mexico and the Midwest, designed to create more than 100,000 jobs. The project is backed by leaders of Softbank, OpenAI and Oracle, who are also behind the\u00a0Freebird data center in Burlington on County Road 133.<\/p>\n The $3 billion\u00a0facility<\/a> includes the\u00a0new construction of a single-story 548,950 square foot data center to help power the future of\u00a0ChatGPT and other AI tools. Construction on phase 1 of\u00a0Freebird Data Centers is expected to be finished this October.\u00a0<\/p>\n Freebird Phase 1 in Milam County, TX officially topped out this week!<\/p>\n From first beam to topping out in two weeks is pretttty, prettty, pretttty good. <\/p>\n Industrializing compute == compressing the cycle time from power to intelligence and making it repeatable! pic.twitter.com\/cQFNPoJulU<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Peter Hoeschele (@retephoeschele) March 19, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Milam County residents appeared optimistic about the economic benefits of the project when it broke ground last year,\u00a025 News KXXV reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Switch’s Central Texas data center<\/p>\n Las Vegas-based Switch<\/a>, an AI factory maker, is building a new $20 million data center in Round Rock. This new development appears to be part\u00a0of “The Rock,”<\/a> a more than 1.5 million square foot, 185-megawatt Tier 5 data center campus located adjacent to Dell Technologies’ headquarters.<\/p>\n The facility will serve as a major AI and cloud infrastructure hub, featuring advanced liquid-to-chip cooling, according to a release. Switch first announced the project in 2021 and has made progress with its first building already in use at 150 Dell Way.<\/p>\n Whereas the company’s latest data center will be located at 300 Dell Way. Construction on the 72,600 square foot data center will begin this June and is slated to be completed by June 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The City of Round Rock currently has three data center projects, including Skybox,<\/a> Switch and Sabey. In early December 2025, Skybox\u2019s proposed data center raised concerns<\/a> among some residents about its potential impacts on electricity and water usage.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, the city confirmed to MySA that its two already-built\u00a0Switch and Sabey data centers have not had huge impacts on the city’s water supply or affected existing residential electricity customers. The city says on its website<\/a> that these data centers use a closed-loop cooling system, which is required in the planned unit development (PUD) to reuse the same water internally and only use small amounts of periodic makeup water.\u00a0<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the City of Round Rock added that although\u00a0Switch’s current data\u00a0center is near a single-family neighborhood, the city has not received any noise complaints from nearby residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n