Stream Data Centers and New Era Energy Forge Joint Venture for Gigawatt-Scale Campus in West Texas

Stream and New Era Energy Announce Major Texas Data Center Venture April 2, 2026 In a significant move highlighting the strategic convergence of energy and digital infrastructure, veteran data center developer Stream Data Centers has entered a partnership with New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. to develop a massive, power-ready data center campus in West Texas. The collaboration underscores the industry's urgent pivot towards regions offering abundant power and land to support the explosive growth of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. The companies announced this week that they have signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to form a joint venture for the development and financing of the Texas Critical Data Centers (TCDC) campus. Under the proposed structure, New Era will contribute its site control and local relationships, while Stream will provide its expertise in data center development, leasing, and operations. Equity capital for the project will be furnished by an unnamed institutional investor, who will also arrange debt financing. New Era retains the right to co-invest significant equity alongside this partner. The campus, located on a 438-acre plot outside Odessa in Ector County with plans for an additional 54-acre acquisition, is poised for substantial scale. Construction is slated to begin this year, targeting an initial operational phase in 2027/2028. The first phase will deliver approximately 200MW of capacity powered by the utility grid, with plans to subsequently bring online around 450MW of on-site, behind-the-meter natural gas generation. The long-term vision allows for the campus to scale beyond 1 gigawatt (GW), potentially encompassing up to ten two-story buildings. New Era CEO E. Will Gray II stated, “The fact that Stream and a premier provider of infrastructure capital have chosen to partner with New Era validates both the strategic value of the TCDC campus and the strength of our development strategy and platform.” Echoing the project's ambition, Stream CEO Michael Lahoud added, “We are proud to be partnered with New Era to build out a world-scale data center in West Texas, which is quickly becoming a premier data center territory.” The technical design calls for a modular deployment using New Era’s proprietary “Atom” design—a 25MW, 200,000-square-foot liquid-cooled facility fabricated by RK Mission Critical, capable of supporting up to 2,500 racks at densities of up to 135kW. For power, New Era has partnered with Thunderhead Energy Solutions for on-site generation and has a separate LOI with Mawgan Capital to deploy 250MW of gas-fired generation. This venture signals a major bet on West Texas as a next-generation data center hub, driven by the need for scalable, power-secure infrastructure. It also marks a strategic evolution for New Era, which rebranded from its origins as a helium and natural gas exploration firm to become a digital infrastructure developer. The project’s hybrid power model, combining grid and dedicated gas generation, presents a template for addressing grid constraints while meeting the relentless power demands of modern computing. Source: datacenterdynamics