The first data center in the Stargate project—a $500 billion artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure initiative backed by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank—is being built in a surprising location: Abilene.
The data center is set to cost $1.1 billion, and, to hear local officials say it, Abilene and its 130,000 residents have just struck gold. “It will impact the rest of the economy—our restaurants, our homebuilders—with that many new people coming in and taking these jobs,” Mayor Weldon Hurt has said.
What few headlines mention, however, is the project’s most troubling feature: a $500 million on-site natural gas plant that will power the data center—and pollute the surrounding community. When it comes to the Stargate data center and power plant in Abilene, the economic impacts are overstated, and the health effects are under-acknowledged. We must push for cleaner energy alternatives before Abilene’s residents feel the consequences.
