In a corner of the Permian Basin better known for gas flares than server racks, a Houston-backed newcomer is staking out one of the largest potential data center sites in West Texas.
PowerBridge, a newly formed developer supported out of Houston, has locked in an option to lease roughly 3,400 acres in Reeves County for a proposed Alpha Digital Campus that could host as much as 2 gigawatts of co-located power for hyperscale computing. The option, struck with surface-land outfit LandBridge, marks one of the biggest single-site data center plays floated in the region this year.
Deal details and timeline
Under the lease-development agreement, LandBridge has given PowerBridge the right to push ahead on site work, pursue entitlements and ultimately lease about 3,400 acres near the Waha natural gas hub for the Alpha Digital Campus. The companies say the site could support up to 2 GW of initial co-located generation. PowerBridge has already filed a Generation Interconnection Request and placed orders for long-lead power equipment, with first power targeted as early as 2027 and broader generation expected in 2028, according to a press release via Business Wire.
What the companies say
LandBridge CEO Jason Long cast the deal as a key proof point for the emerging digital buildout in the oil patch. “This new agreement with PowerBridge represents a catalyst for executing on the West Texas data center thesis,” he said in the release via Business Wire.
On the other side of the table, PowerBridge CEO Alex Hernandez pitched the project as a hyperscaler-ready platform. The company is promising “pad-ready” powered campuses that wrap in on-site generation, fiber and civil infrastructure so cloud giants can move at their preferred pace and scale, according to the same release.
How PowerBridge fits the Five Point plan
PowerBridge was created by Five Point Infrastructure as part of a broader “powered land” strategy that pulls together large, contiguous acreage with fuel economics and produced-water services to speed up gigawatt-scale deployments. The platform was launched with an equity commitment on the order of $1 billion, industry reporting shows. That setup is designed to let PowerBridge team with affiliates LandBridge and WaterBridge to offer large, serviceable tracts in the Permian Basin, according to Hart Energy.
Who's leading PowerBridge
PowerBridge is led by Alex Hernandez, who founded Cumulus Data and previously served as CEO of Talen Energy. Talen disclosures note that the Cumulus campus and related assets were sold to Amazon Web Services in 2024, giving Hernandez a track record in delivering data campuses that pair computing with generation capacity. Hernandez and other former Cumulus executives sit at the center of PowerBridge's pitch that vertically integrated power and site services can help hyperscalers move faster, according to Talen Energy.
Power, water and local capacity
The companies are leaning heavily on geography. They point to proximity to the Waha gas hub, along with WaterBridge's produced-water capabilities, as key enablers of the powered-campus model. PowerBridge has filed interconnection paperwork and ordered long-lead equipment as part of its early site work, and those filings and orders are already in motion, per coverage by Investing.com.
What this means for local communities
LandBridge controls a sizable surface portfolio across the Permian and has flagged tens of thousands of acres it considers suitable for data center use. That means Alpha Digital could end up as the opening act for a series of mega-campuses on LandBridge's footprint rather than a one-off. The pitch includes construction and long-term operations jobs, but also revives familiar West Texas debates around permitting, water use and grid capacity that have dogged other large-scale data center proposals in the region, according to DataCenterDynamics.
Next steps
For now, the deal is still an option to lease, not a green light to pour foundations. Both companies emphasize that the project remains subject to entitlements, interconnection approvals and commercial agreements before any ground is broken. Local reporting and trade coverage, including reporting from Houston Business Journal, note that more specific timelines and tenant announcements will hinge on how quickly the project can move through permitting and interconnection queues.
