Stargate's first data center campus in Texas, a joint venture by Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank, could cost an estimated $1.1 billion.

The rise of artificial intelligence, the digitization of the economy and everyday life’s growing computing needs have turbocharged the expansion of data centers, driving up a surge in electricity demand in Texas and across the country.

About 875 acres in Abilene, or roughly the size of New York’s Central Park, have been set aside to construct data centers, according to city documents seen by Bloomberg News. Or