Texas loves to talk about how business-friendly it is. 

But it turns out even Texas has limits, and data centers are testing them. 

It mostly comes down to power — the electric kind. Demand on Texas’s self-contained grid, which has already infamously struggled, is set to nearly double over the next six years. Data centers are a major part of that, especially as Texas has become the crypto-mining capital of the U.S.

“I’m more interested in building the grid to service customers in their homes, apartments, and normal businesses and keeping costs as low as possible for them instead of for very niche industries that have massive power demands and produce few jobs,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on social media platform X after the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas presented new and startlingly higher demand projections.

“We want data centers, but it can’t be the Wild Wild West of data centers and crypto miners crashing our grid and turning the lights off.”

Bisnow Houston Reporter Maddy McCarty and Data Center Reporter Dan Rabb teamed up on this one to uncover what has Texas politicians reaching across the aisle to look for ways to put the brakes on a booming industry.

— Catie Dixon, Bisnow Managing Editor