Democrats won the Texas governor's race and will take control of the Texas House for the first time in 24 years, and that could slow some of the state's largest AI data center projects, according to MIT Technology Review.
The report says Texas is the fastest-growing data center market in the US. Democrat James Talarico won the US Senate seat, and Gina Hinojosa won the governor's race against Republican incumbent Greg Abbott. Talarico and Hinojosa made data centers a central campaign issue.
The report says that on September 21, Abbott directed a key state regulator to halt data center permits. Developers said the governor's office had stopped responding to their emails. Panelists at the DCD conference in Ashburn, Virginia, expected existing projects might slow and new ones could be halted. The report says Hinojosa supported tax breaks for data centers in 2023 but later pushed for a full moratorium.
The report cites two large projects in Texas. The Stargate Frontier data center in Shackelford County is projected to serve 1,820 megawatts. Nexus Hubbard, mostly intended to serve Anthropic, has a planned size of 6,400 megawatts.
The report says the county results were mixed. Dallas County and nearby counties voted blue. Ellis County, which leads in data center permit requests, voted for Abbott and Paxton. Cameron County voted blue. Mitchell and Scurry counties, where several west Texas projects are located, voted red.
The report notes that no single state office decides whether a project proceeds. City governments, county officials and state offices all share influence. It also says local officials may resist state-level restrictions, and construction unions that backed some Democratic campaigns may oppose a moratorium.