Texas is slowing new data-center connections to its power grid, a sharp turn for a state that has marketed itself as a major home for AI infrastructure.
Governor Greg Abbott directed state regulators and ERCOT, the operator of most of the Texas grid, to audit data centers moving through the interconnection process. Ars Technica reports that ERCOT’s queue includes more than 1,800 projects representing over 474 gigawatts of requested grid connections, with about 90 percent of those requests coming from data centers.
That number is not the same as real demand; many proposed projects may never be built. But it is large enough to raise reliability questions because it is several times Texas’ record peak electricity use. AI training and inference facilities can require enormous, steady power supplies, and developers are racing to secure capacity before competitors do.
The pause shows how the AI buildout is moving from chip supply into local infrastructure politics. Data centers need land, power and transmission, and states that welcome them still have to decide how much risk their grids and communities should absorb.