Massive 'Trump campus' data center faces huge opposition: 'Take our health into account'

Numerous companies and investment firms are eager to establish their presence in Texas because of the Lone Star State's low cost of living and benefits for corporations. 

Recently, however, Texas has been hit hard by the AI data center boom, according to Politico. With over 400 data centers within its borders, Texas has the second-highest number in the country after Virginia.

All eyes are on Fermi America's Project Matador, a hyperscale artificial intelligence data center and power plant campus 12 miles northeast of Amarillo that has been rebranded as the Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus. 

The project, led by former Gov. Rick Perry and backed by co-founder Toby Neugebauer of Quantum Energy Partners, includes significant investment ties to the oil and gas sector. The campus' multistep energy plan includes components of natural gas and solar energy, along with the potential for nuclear reactors.

Covering nearly 6,000 acres, it will be the largest data center in the world, and it is facing mounting opposition. 

Community members in the Panhandle region and residents across the state have opposed Project Matador from its inception, concerned about how this massive undertaking will affect their air and water.

"There are significant concerns with air quality when you have Fermi, who is asking the [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality] for an authorization to emit 23.5 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year," said Kathryn Guerra, the director of Public Citizen's TCEQ watchdog campaign, according to Spectrum News 1.

Still, the TCEQ gave Fermi America the green light to install 93 gas-powered turbines on its site in February, E&E News reported. The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Clubs warned that Project Matador's gas capacity, which exceeds 5,100 megawatts, would make it the largest gas plant in the United States.

"We asked them to take our health into account," Amarillo resident Kendra Seawright said, per Public Citizen. "We followed all the rules to be heard by the TCEQ, but this decision proves that they will allow industry to bulldoze their way into our communities without consideration of how it could harm us."

This project is just one of the countless battles unfolding against data centers as communities try to resist the rush to build them to meet the insatiable needs of AI technology. Nearly half the data centers in the U.S. planned for 2026 have been delayed or canceled, but some communities are being silenced and others aren't even getting a say.

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