Gov. Greg Abbott signaled a shift in his stance on unchecked data center growth Tuesday, calling for a ban on new AI data centers in rural Texas neighborhoods during a campaign stop in East Texas.
“We must prohibit them from building AI data centers in rural Texas neighborhoods,” Abbott said at a campaign stop in Bullard, located about 15 miles south of Tyler.
“I made clear already, any AI data center even thinking about coming here, they got to bring their own money, bring their own power, reuse their own water and do it in a way that reduces the cost of electricity for residents across our state.”
He called for Texas to “eliminate the tax break” for such projects.
“They must be responsible for funding their own projects here in Texas,” the governor said. “We will get that done.”
With hundreds of data centers in some stage of development across Texas, Abbott’s comments appeared to mark an escalation from a sweeping regulatory framework he unveiled in June requiring data centers to add new power generation to the grid, cover their own infrastructure costs, reuse their own water, implement setbacks, and take other steps to limit impacts on residential communities.
In his June 10 directive, Abbott instructed the Public Utility Commission of Texas to “guarantee any data center development does not come at the cost of Texans and our local communities” and to consider ways to “minimize adverse impacts on local communities.”
With more than 1,500 new facilities in various stages of development nationwide, Virginia and Texas lead the U.S. in planned data centers, with around 287 and 170, respectively, according to a Pew Research Center survey published in April.
The governor had previously championed Texas as a hub for the industry. In November, he announced a $40 billion Google investment in cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, calling the state “the epicenter of AI development.”
Ronald Fitzgerald, who was elected Precinct 2 commissioner in March and has been a vocal advocate for stronger data center oversight, urged Abbott to follow up his comments with action.
“This is a start, but it’s not enough. We need action now, and we cannot wait until the next legislative session. That will be too late,” he said in a Facebook post Wednesday. “I will keep voicing my concerns to Austin, and I hope you will too. We need immediate action by our state officials to protect Precinct 2 and all rural areas in the state.”
The Lone Star State has quickly become ground zero for legal and legislative challenges to proposed data center projects, which often promise economic benefits but face mounting local resistance over noise disruption, massive electricity and water demands, and the conversion of prime farmland to industrial use.
Officials in Wise County, located just northwest of Fort Worth, have called on lawmakers in Austin to establish safeguards to rein in the development of any future data centers or to allow county governments to take action instead. The Texas Legislature is expected to take up the resolution when it convenes in January 2027.
In May, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller called for a temporary statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, adding that doing so “creates breathing room for lawmakers, regulators, utilities, water experts, landowners, and agriculture to craft responsible guardrails before the industry outgrows our ability to manage it.”
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