Amazon has confirmed plans to power a new AI data center campus in Pecos County, Texas, with electricity from a privately developed natural gas plant large enough to rank among the biggest single sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the country.

The company acquired a site tied to the GW Ranch gas plant, a project being developed by Pacifico Energy, and will buy power directly from the facility rather than drawing from the state grid, at least in the near term. Market intelligence firm Cleanview first connected Amazon to the site this week after tracing three newly filed data center construction permits to land where clearing work had already begun near the GW Ranch project.

Project Scope and Emissions

State permit filings show the GW Ranch plant would run 35 gas turbines with a combined generation capacity of 7.65 gigawatts, making it one of the largest gas-fired plants ever proposed in the United States. Texas has permitted the facility to emit upward of 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually — a ceiling that, if reached, would place it among the single largest emissions sources in the country. Operators typically run well below their permitted maximums, and Amazon has signaled the plant is designed to eventually connect to the grid as interconnection timelines allow.

A larger 9.2-gigawatt facility already planned in Ohio, backed by a public-private partnership involving SoftBank, would both feed the grid and supply a data center directly, unlike the fully off-grid GW Ranch arrangement.

Company Response

An Amazon spokesperson framed the investment as a way to shield Texas ratepayers from the cost of new grid infrastructure being built to serve AI demand. “Our new planned data center campus in Pecos County… is powered by new on-site generation that won’t raise electricity costs for Texas families,” the company said in a statement.

Amazon said it is also evaluating solar and battery storage for the site, and that the plant will draw on non-potable, brackish groundwater rather than sources used for drinking water or irrigation. Separately, Pacifico Energy has outlined plans for up to 750 megawatts of on-site solar generation and 1.8 gigawatts of battery storage capacity at GW Ranch. Amazon maintains its target of net-zero emissions by 2040 under its Climate Pledge and points to roughly 10 gigawatts of carbon-free energy projects it has already backed in Texas.

Part of a Broader Industry Shift

GW Ranch is Amazon’s first major bet on off-grid, “behind-the-meter” power for a data center, a strategy pioneered at scale by xAI’s gas-turbine buildout in Memphis. Cleanview’s research puts the current industry-wide pipeline of behind-the-meter gas projects — spanning Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle — at roughly 90 gigawatts of announced capacity since the start of 2025, with combined emissions potentially exceeding 200 million tons of CO2 a year if fully built out.

Amazon’s Pecos County plans also sit close to a rival project: Microsoft announced a partnership with Chevron in June to build a data center campus about 30 miles away, powered by 2 gigawatts of off-grid gas. Amazon is separately in discussions tied to a 4.5-gigawatt gas plant proposed in Homer City, Pennsylvania, suggesting GW Ranch is unlikely to be its last off-grid power commitment as AWS works to close a persistent gap between compute demand and available data center capacity.

Texas has emerged as the epicenter of this buildout beyond Amazon and Microsoft alone. Galaxy Digital’s 5.7-gigawatt Helios data center pipeline is advancing in parallel, underscoring how the state’s combination of available land, permissive permitting, and gas infrastructure has made it the default staging ground for hyperscale AI power deals.

Project Factsheet: GW Ranch

• Location: Pecos County, Texas
• Developer: Pacifico Energy
• Capacity: 7.65 GW across 35 gas turbines
• Grid status: Off-grid initially; designed for future grid interconnection
• Permitted emissions: Upward of 30 million metric tons of CO2/year
• On-site renewables planned: Up to 750 MW solar, 1.8 GW battery storage
• Water source: Non-potable, brackish groundwater
• Context: Amazon’s first major off-grid data center power deal; follows similar moves by Microsoft, Google, Meta, and xAI