Fermi America Inks MoU with MVM EGI for Pioneering Cooling Systems on Texas Mega-Campus
December 1, 2025
In a significant move for the data center industry's sustainability efforts, Fermi America has entered a strategic partnership to develop advanced cooling infrastructure for its colossal planned campus in Texas. The collaboration underscores the critical challenge of water conservation as AI-driven computing demand pushes power and cooling requirements to unprecedented scales, particularly in water-stressed regions like the Texas Panhandle.
Fermi America announced on Tuesday that it has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hungarian power-cooling specialist MVM EGI Zrt. The agreement focuses on the joint development of cooling systems for Fermi's "Project Matador," a planned data center and energy campus in Amarillo, Texas, with a potential capacity of up to 11 gigawatts (GW). The project, developed in partnership with the Texas Tech University system, is slated to span 18 million square feet upon completion.
Under the MoU, the companies will conduct preliminary engineering and feasibility studies for a series of large-scale, indirect hybrid cooling towers. This system is designed to support the campus's diverse energy infrastructure, which includes a planned 6GW of natural gas generation and four Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors, each with an output of roughly 1.1GW. The studies will define cooling requirements, evaluate configurations, and model the water-saving performance of the hybrid technology, which relies primarily on air cooling and closed-loop water systems to drastically reduce evaporative loss.
Péter Kárpáti, CEO of MVM EGI P.L.C., highlighted his firm's heritage, stating, "MVM EGI has been on the cutting-edge of power cooling for more than half a century, maintaining the heritage of our founders, Professor László Heller and Professor László Forgó whom the high-capacity water-saving dry cooling systems are named after worldwide." The partners also aim to evaluate the use of recycled water and solar-covered retention ponds.
Fermi's leadership emphasized a local and responsible approach. "Fermi isn't some out-of-town operation parachuting in. Our leadership is from West Texas — we grew up on this dirt, and we care about the land and its resources," stated Fermi America Co-Founder and CEO Toby Neugebauer. "As promised, we're working with global innovators like MVM to ensure Project Matador complements the long-term water needs of the region, building something big, but doing it the right way."
The first cooling tower construction is scheduled to begin in January 2026, with the full system expected to be built out by 2034 to match the campus's phased development. This cooling partnership is a key component of one of the world's most ambitious data center projects, which has already mobilized significant capital. Fermi made its stock market debut in October with a valuation of nearly $15 billion and has secured hundreds of millions in funding, including from Macquarie Group. The company has also signed several deals to secure natural gas turbine capacity and pipeline connections for the site's near-term power needs.
The initiative represents a major test case for deploying next-generation, water-efficient cooling at a giga-scale. Its success or failure could influence sustainability standards and feasibility models for future mega-campuses, especially as the industry grapples with the environmental footprint of AI infrastructure. However, the project faces substantial challenges, including an estimated cost exceeding $2 billion for its first two phases and the long lead times associated with its planned nuclear reactors.
Source: datacenterdynamics
