Big Digital Energy, Inc. and energy-infrastructure company 10NetZero have entered into a 50:50 joint venture to build on a 50-acre plot of land in Hood County. The project would be a “large-scale datacenter campus serving artificial intelligence tenants.”
Big Digital Energy Inc., formerly Mawson Infrastructure Group, is “focused on digital infrastructure positioned for long-term compute demand,” and it promises to “power the strategic compute necessary for National Security tomorrow.”
The Hood County site currently has about 17 MW of operational, “live” power, with plans to expand up to as much as 311 MW of potential capacity, subject to ERCOT approvals and infrastructure add-ons.
“Our planned acquisition … is a prime example of our efforts to leverage our powered land expertise and pipeline to identify and acquire attractive AI ready sites,” said Josh Kilgore, chairman of Big Digital Energy.
Kilgore also said the deal reflects the company’s commitment to “maximize value to all Big Digital stakeholders.”
In addition to the Hood County site, Big Digital is planning additional sites in Dallas, Mustang, and South Texas, as well as Oklahoma, through its Six Thirty AI venture, which holds a portfolio of digital infrastructure and mining sites.
Cody Smith, COO of Big Digital, stated that the Hood County site “would let [the company] deliver capacity to AI customers years ahead of a comparable greenfield project.”
Hood County has been the site of multiple fights over data center development. County commissioners have postponed action on some data center plans and outright rejected others but refused to implement a moratorium on the projects.
Gov. Greg Abbott has recently stated that data centers should not be built in rural Texas neighborhoods, calling for new limits on data center development in rural communities and directing regulators to ensure such projects pay for their own power, infrastructure, and water and do not raise residential electric bills.
Meanwhile, calls for a special legislative session to address data center regulations have been voiced by many Texas residents.
