Project dossier · Shackelford County, Texas

OpenAI Stargate Shackelford Under construction

Part of Stargate.

Key facts

Operator: Oracle
Owner: Oracle
Tenant: OpenAI
Location: Shackelford County, Texas
Stage today: Under construction

Source
read 2026-08-14

What to do next

Next step: Under construction — pull the approved conditions and permits and hold the builder to them; an expansion or a new building reopens the record.

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What has happened so far (9 events)

2025-07-21vote
Shackelford County Commission unanimously approved Vantage Data Centers' 1,200-acre data center project, including a 10-year tax abatement with $10 million in annual payments to the county. · source
2025-08-01coverage
KTXS reported the Vantage data center is expected to create 250 full-time permanent jobs and employ up to 6,500 workers during peak construction, with construction starting later in 2025 and completion targeted for 2029. · source
2025-08-19announcement
Vantage Data Centers formally announced its $25 billion Frontier campus in Shackelford County: 1.4 GW of capacity across 10 data centers on 1,200 acres totaling 3.7 million square feet, with over 5,000 jobs expected across construction and operations. · source
2025-08-21coverage
CarbonCredits.com reported on water concerns around the Frontier campus, noting Texas Water Development Board forecasts that data centers could account for about 7 percent of Texas' total projected water use by 2030; Vantage had not disclosed specific water consumption projections for the site. · source
2025-12-16construction
Vantage Data Centers broke ground on the Frontier campus, confirmed as part of OpenAI and Oracle's Stargate initiative; the first facility was scheduled for Q2 2026 with full campus completion targeted for 2028. · source
2026-07-17hearing
County Judge John M. Viertel held an informal open session with residents to discuss reinvestment zones after a second data center proposal was introduced at a commissioners court meeting; residents questioned whether another data center was necessary. · source
2026-07-22protest
County Judge John Viertel acknowledged community backlash against the second proposed data center, stating 'the overall view is resistance' and that residents prioritize cultural preservation over economic benefits; water supply was cited as the most prominent concern. · source
2026-08-13hearing
A town hall was held at Albany High School for community input on a second data center proposed by Bolt Data and Energy at Buck Nail Ranch, about 16 miles west of Albany; the company had not disclosed the project's size, water demand, or job count, and commissioners had not approved the project. · source
2026-08-14coverage
KTXS reported mixed community reactions to the second proposed data center; resident Blaine Kayga said 'there's just way more negatives than there are positives,' citing traffic and safety issues from existing data center construction, while others noted potential employment benefits. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

Texas TCEQ — Air Permits DivisionThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
TCEQ Central RegistrySearchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Search Shackelford County planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Shackelford County property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

ERCOT (Texas) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
Public Utility Commission of Texas — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 32.380, -99.770 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Texas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Texas

Crusoe Abilene Expansion — Abilene, 0 mi Under construction
Stargate Abilene — Abilene (Taylor County), 5 mi Approved
Vantage Frontier — Shackelford County, 34 mi Under construction
Google West Texas campuses — Haskell County (+ Armstrong Co.), 54 mi Approved
Coreweave Helios — Afton (Dickens County), 106 mi Operating

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “OpenAI Stargate Shackelford”, aigridwatch.com/projects/openai-stargate-shackelford, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).