Data centres head west
Developers are shifting U.S. data‑centre growth westward to find cheaper and more available energy, with Texas emerging as a new hotspot while constrained West Coast states risk losing market share. Large-scale planning is also turning to gigawatt‑range blueprints that rely on electrical, thermal and lifecycle simulation—using tools like Nvidia Omniverse—to model and optimise whole facilities. (computerweekly.com) (all-about-industries.com)
U.S. data-centre developers are pushing new projects toward power-rich states, with Texas emerging as the biggest new draw. (computerweekly.com) The shift is being driven by electricity first, not fiber first. S&P Global said U.S. data-centre power demand was expected to top 280 terawatt-hours in 2024 and nearly double to 530 terawatt-hours by 2028, pushing developers toward regions with generation surpluses and shorter interconnection queues. (spglobal.com) Computer Weekly reported on April 13, 2026, that Texas is becoming a hotspot while Northern Virginia is expected to keep its lead and constrained West Coast states risk losing share. The publication said developers are now hunting for “available and cheap energy” as projects move into the gigawatt era. (computerweekly.com) Texas has become central to that search because it combines abundant energy resources with a competitive wholesale market and a regulatory structure that has already attracted large industrial loads. A University of Texas white paper published in 2026 said those advantages are now being tested by Electric Reliability Council of Texas interconnection timelines and new planning demands from artificial-intelligence campuses. (utexas.edu) A gigawatt-scale data centre is not a single warehouse with servers. It is closer to a power plant-sized campus, where the electrical system, cooling system, land plan and construction schedule have to work together before a single chip is switched on. (blogs.nvidia.com) That is why developers are moving from static drawings to digital twins, which are software models that mirror a real facility in detail. Nvidia said its Omniverse DSX blueprint, launched on October 28, 2025, lets builders co-design the building, power and cooling systems and test thermal and electrical performance before construction. (blogs.nvidia.com) Nvidia said the blueprint was validated at Digital Realty’s AI Factory Research Center in Manassas, Virginia, and built with partners including Jacobs, Siemens, Schneider Electric, Trane Technologies, Vertiv, PTC and Bechtel. The company said engineers can use the model to predict failures, optimize operations and shorten build times with prefabricated modules. (blogs.nvidia.com) Jacobs said on March 23, 2026, that its data-centre digital twin is now part of the Omniverse DSX libraries and is being used to plan, simulate and optimize gigawatt-scale artificial-intelligence facilities. Siemens said on March 16, 2026, that it had added new reference architectures tied to Nvidia’s blueprint, including simulation-ready power and automation designs. (jacobs.com) (siemens.com) The power question does not disappear once a site is chosen. The University of Texas paper said developers in Texas are increasingly weighing behind-the-meter generation, microgrids and hybrid systems because conventional grid-only connections may not arrive fast enough for the biggest artificial-intelligence loads. (utexas.edu) The result is a map of U.S. data-centre growth that is being redrawn by substations, turbines and cooling loops as much as by cloud demand. In this market, the winning site is no longer just the one closest to users; it is the one that can deliver power at scale, on time, and on paper before the concrete is poured. (spglobal.com) (blogs.nvidia.com)
