| ProjectLok. Issue No. 01 · September 1, 2026 · Southwest Edition | | The Brief The Southwest doesn't fight over power. It fights over water. Every other region in this series fights over power. The Southwest fights over water. Arizona built the densest data center market in the country — more than 100 in Maricopa County alone — in a place running dry, and the bill is now due. The developers are splitting into two camps. One brings its own power: Takanock's 18 gas turbines near Surprise, the border microgrid at Project Jupiter — trading the utility waitlist for an air-quality and water fight fierce enough to stall permits and draw thousands of petitioners. The other engineers the water out: EdgeCore's closed-loop, air-cooled Mesa campus uses almost none, and gets welcomed for it. Read the split and you can predict which projects move. In the Southwest, the gating constraint isn't megawatts, and it isn't even the grid. It's water — and how much a community will tolerate the way you make your power. | | This Week's Projects | | Meta Los Lunas Expansion — Los Lunas, NM Developer: Meta (Greater Kudu LLC) · Sector: Data Center $800M new AI expansion · 2 next-gen liquid-cooled buildings / +500 acres · Valencia County | Approved · IRB & Incentives March 2026, ~3-Year Build |
The campus that made New Mexico, now going AI. Meta opened Los Lunas in 2019 and has built it to eight buildings and nearly $2 billion across 3.8 million square feet. In 2026 it moved on a two-building expansion worth around $800 million, with roughly a three-year build, after the Village approved industrial revenue bonds and Meta acquired nearly 500 adjacent acres in late 2025. The new AI buildings deploy liquid cooling for Nvidia-class density, backed by PNM solar-plus-storage. A proven campus with fresh, just-entitled AI scope — water remains the watch item. | | | Project Jupiter (Stargate) — Santa Teresa, NM Developer: BorderPlex Digital Assets + Stack Infrastructure · Tenants: OpenAI + Oracle · Sector: Data Center + Dedicated Power $165B county IRB authorization (not confirmed capex) · islanded fuel-cell microgrid 700 MW–1 GW / 4 buildings initial · Doña Ana County | Under Construction · Air Permit Ruled Incomplete Dec 2025 |
One of five national Stargate sites, and the reason New Mexico is suddenly a data center state. BorderPlex and Stack Infrastructure are building an OpenAI/Oracle campus on the border, powered by what founders call one of the world's largest islanded microgrids — Bloom Energy solid-oxide fuel cells running on natural gas, replacing an earlier gas-turbine plan — entirely off the El Paso Electric grid. Doña Ana County approved a historic $165 billion industrial revenue bond (a financing ceiling, not a confirmed build cost). But this is a contested build: the state ruled the air-permit application incomplete in December, with environmental concerns centered on 14+ million tons of annual CO2, and water opposition on the parched border is fierce. The microgrid and closed-loop cooling are enormous specialized scope — track the air permit before mobilizing. | | | Project Baccara (Takanock) — Surprise, AZ Developer: Takanock LLC (DigitalBridge / ArcLight) · Sector: Data Center + On-Site Gas Part of Takanock's $36B multi-site build-out · 2 data centers (~2M sq ft) + 700 MW on-site gas (18 turbines) / 160 acres · Maricopa County | Approved · CLEARED FOR CONSTRUCTION |
"Both approvals that stood between this and groundbreaking are now cleared — the Arizona Corporation Commission's environmental certificate and Maricopa County's Military Compatibility Permit both passed earlier this year, despite organized opposition from neighbors near Luke Air Force Base. Takanock is targeting Q3 2026 construction start on the 700MW gas plant and two data halls, part of the company's $36B build-out across four sites in three states. For contractors, the window to get in front of trade packages is now, not later — this one's moving." | | | Vantage NV1 Campus — Sparks, NV Developer: Vantage Data Centers · GC: McCarthy Building Companies · Sector: Data Center ~$3B campus · 224 MW / 4 buildings / 137 acres · Storey County | Under Construction · NV11 & NV12 Topped Out, NV11 Online Q4 2026 |
Nevada's answer to a saturated Phoenix. Vantage entered the state with a nearly $3 billion, 224 MW campus in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center — four multi-story buildings over 137 acres. McCarthy Building Companies is running a design-build with Corgan; NV11 and NV12 (128 MW combined) have topped out with over 1.1 million labor hours since breaking ground in 2024, and NV13/NV14 are in planning. That's the profile specialty contractors want — named GC, established trade roster, two more buildings of runway. The corridor now hosts Google, Apple, and Microsoft too; it's a real cluster. | | | EdgeCore PH02 Data Center — Mesa, AZ Developer: EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure (Partners Group) · GC: Holder Construction · Sector: Data Center $1.9B (PH02) · 108 MW / 868K sq ft; part of a 3.1M sq ft / 450 MW campus · Maricopa County | Under Construction · Topped Out Dec 2024, Online 2026 |
The merchant-colo answer to Phoenix's density — and its water problem. EdgeCore, backed by Partners Group, is building a flagship Mesa campus on the old GM Desert Proving Grounds, financed by a $1.9 billion green loan and scaling toward 450 MW across a six-building campus. PH02 — 108 MW, more than 868,000 square feet — topped out with Holder Construction and roughly 1,100 workers, completing in 2026, with a third building right behind it and another 250-plus MW of land added in June. The differentiator is the desert answer to water: EdgeCore runs a closed-loop, air-cooled design that uses almost no water — the opposite bet from the gas-and-turbine campuses elsewhere in this issue. Named GC, active multi-building pipeline, and a water story that plays well with the AHJs. | | | These five represent a fraction of what's active in the Southwest right now. If you're tracking a specific project or market and want a full intelligence report — hit reply. We read everything. | | Signal Watch With no interconnection queue out here, the gate on behind-the-meter power isn't the grid — it's the air permit. Every developer bringing its own gas has to clear Arizona's Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and a county air-quality permit, and that's where the fights are landing. Project Baccara won its state environmental certificate but still waits on the Maricopa County air permit that 6,800 petitioners are contesting. Project Jupiter's air-quality application was ruled incomplete in December over its emissions. And the pressure is moving local — Phoenix's City Council voted in December to tighten where data centers can be built and how they look. The pattern: as gas-fired "bring your own power" spreads to dodge APS's data center waitlist, air-quality permitting and municipal zoning become the real schedule risk — the Southwest's version of the interconnection gate. Before you chase a self-powered desert campus, check whether its air permit and its city will let it run. | | | By the Numbers 100 Data centers operating in Maricopa County alone — among the densest concentrations on the planet, built in one of its driest corners. In the Southwest, water is the constraint that decides who gets to build, and how. | | Coming Up Next issue digs into the Arizona gas rush — the wave of Baccara-style on-site power plants racing to beat the utility waitlist (Seguro's Casa Grande project, an APS 2-gigawatt subscription gas plant proposed at Gila Bend) and the opposition organizing to stop them. Plus New Mexico's other frontier: the Permian Basin, where Lea County's oil-and-gas country is being pitched a 7-gigawatt data center hub. And the water math nobody wants to run out loud. | | ProjectLok A Lok product · Building Intelligence · projectlok.com | |