GridLeads analysis · October 2026
On 24 September 2026 Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into data center developments that had not answered the state's water use survey, and named 18 counties1. Of the 329 data centers surveyed last year, only about 30% answered2.
We looked at every data center GridLeads tracks in those counties. We don't know which of them answered the survey. Point at a county to see what we found.
Selected county · hover or tap the map
Water tight, new data centers coming, and a project running late
Every data center has to get rid of heat. There are two main ways to do it.
Water-cooled
Cooling towers evaporate water to carry heat away. It's efficient, but it drinks a lot of water.
Air-cooled
Fans and chillers push heat into the air. Little or no water, but more electricity, especially on hot days.
These are our estimates from permits, city records and company websites, not official figures. Companies like to advertise waterless designs, while cooling towers mostly show up in permits, so water-cooled sites are probably undercounted. The bars leave out 8 projects whose cooling we know but whose running status we could not confirm.
44 projects 21 planned or building 5,870 MW planned 4 running late
Water is tight: 100% of the county is in severe drought or worse, a water shortage is forecast for 2030 or 2040 and groundwater is under strain. 4 projects have passed a stated opening or completion date (announced, or filed with the state) with no sign the late building is running. Where we could tell how they cool: 20 air-cooled, 1 using both.
15 projects 10 planned or building 910 MW planned 3 running late
Water is tight: 100% of the county is in severe drought or worse, a water shortage is forecast for 2030 or 2040 and groundwater is under strain. 3 projects have passed a stated opening or completion date (announced, or filed with the state) with no sign the late building is running. Where we could tell how they cool: 8 air-cooled, 2 water-cooled.
1 project 1 planned or building 1 running late
Water is tight: 96% of the county is in severe drought or worse, a water shortage is forecast for 2030 or 2040 and groundwater is under strain. 1 project has passed a stated opening or completion date (announced, or filed with the state) with no sign the late building is running. We could not tell how these sites are cooled.
25 projects 7 planned or building 3,102 MW planned 2 running late (unconfirmed)
Water is tight: a water shortage is forecast for 2030 or 2040 and groundwater is under strain. 2 projects near Houston have passed a stated opening or completion date with no sign the late building is running, though we haven't confirmed they sit in Harris County. Where we could tell how they cool: 6 air-cooled, 3 water-cooled, 1 using both.
3 projects 2 planned or building 1,000 MW planned 1 running late (unconfirmed)
Water is tight: 100% of the county is in severe drought or worse and a water shortage is forecast for 2030 or 2040. One project may be running late: a stated date has passed and we can't confirm whether it is running. Where we could tell how they cool: 1 air-cooled, 2 water-cooled.
The Attorney General's release of 24 September 2026 names 18 counties where data centers are under initial investigation: Harris, Montgomery, Travis, Dallas, Tarrant, Smith, Bexar, Tom Green, Potter, Randall, Lubbock, Midland, Ector, Wichita, Victoria, Brazos, Nueces and El Paso. Potter, Randall and El Paso sit mostly outside ERCOT, so this screen covers the other 15.
GridLeads is our project-by-project record of large power users in Texas. It holds 150 projects in these 18 counties. We left out 9 power-supply records (mostly power plants), 2 projects in El Paso (not on the main grid), 4 factories and 5 likely duplicates, which leaves 130 data center projects. Some projects in our records don't list a county yet, so they aren't counted here.
We read state environmental permits, building registrations, city and county meeting records, and company websites and filings. We only called a site water-cooled or air-cooled when the evidence pointed one way. For 27 of the 75 projects whose cooling we could call, a permit or statement about that site said so. The rest are based on indirect signs, such as company-wide policy or how the power supply is sized, so treat them as estimates. "Closed loop" on its own wasn't enough, because a closed loop can still use cooling towers.
A county counts as short on water if it has at least two of these: a quarter or more of the county in severe drought on the US Drought Monitor of 29 September 2026, a water shortage of 10% or more forecast for 2030 or 2040 in the State Water Plan, or strained groundwater (falling water levels, pumping cuts, or a state listing as a groundwater problem area) or a main city at drought stage 2 or higher.
Every quote behind every call was re-checked word for word against its source. 393 of 432 matched exactly. The rest were dropped, kept as close paraphrases, or marked as unreachable. We never treated a planned opening date as proof a site is running.
No. We don't know which data centers answered the state's survey, and nothing here says any of them didn't. We don't name any company or site.
GridLeads tracks large power users across ERCOT project by project: how many MW, how far along, the sources, and the people behind them.