Project dossier · Shackelford County, Texas

Vantage Frontier Under construction

Vantage Data Centers' largest campus and investment to date: a $25 billion, 1.4 GW AI campus on 1,200 acres in Shackelford County, Texas, comprising 10 data centers totaling 3.7 million square feet. Construction was already underway at announcement, with the first building scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2026 and more than 5,000 construction and operations jobs projected. Vantage says the campus uses liquid cooling with a closed-loop chiller system requiring minimal water. No tenant is identified in the announcement.

Key facts

Operator: Vantage Data Centers
Owner: Vantage Data Centers
Size: 1,400 MW
Acres: 1,200
Location: Shackelford County, Texas
First proposed: 2025-08-19
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 (15 events)

2025-07-21incentive
Shackelford County Commissioners Court unanimously approved creation of Reinvestment Zone 2025-1, accepted Vantage's Chapter 312 tax abatement application, and declared intent to enter a formal agreement providing $10 million annual payments in lieu of property taxes for 10 years, plus $150,000 annually in charitable contributions. · source
2025-07-24coverage
The Albany News reported that Shackelford County commissioners approved the reinvestment zone and tax abatement application at a special meeting, with the formal agreement contingent on Vantage completing its land purchase within 30 days; up to 6,500 construction workers and 250 permanent jobs with $25 million annual payroll were projected. · source
2025-07-31coverage
KTAB Abilene reported County Judge John Viertel confirmed Vantage's $10 million annual payment deal, called it a significant uptick in the county's budget, and noted water concerns from residents regarding initial sourcing from Clear Fork Brazos River or Hubbard Creek Reservoir for the closed-circuit cooling system. · source
2025-08-19announcement
Vantage unveiled Frontier, a $25 billion, 1.4 GW, 1,200-acre, 10-building AI campus in Shackelford County, Texas, with construction underway and first delivery targeted for H2 2026. · source
2025-09-23announcement
OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank announced five new Stargate data center sites, identifying Shackelford County, Texas as one of three Oracle-partnered locations, as part of the $500 billion Stargate initiative targeting nearly 7 GW of new AI compute capacity. · source
2025-09-29coverage
Data Center Frontier reported the Shackelford County site as an extension of the Abilene area hosting Vantage's Frontier project, one of two Texas Stargate sites (alongside Milam County), both within ERCOT territory, as part of the push toward 10 GW total Stargate infrastructure. · source
2025-10-02announcement
The Albany News reported the Shackelford County data center received official confirmation as the Frontier Campus for Stargate, with Oracle's Mahesh Thiagarajan stating commitment to the Shackelford County community; the campus was specified as 700 acres with 1,600+ full-time positions upon completion. · source
2025-10-24coverage
Construction Owners reported that VoltaGrid will power the Frontier campus off-grid with 210 Jenbacher gas generators (197 prime, 13 backup) producing 700 MW in phase one, with TCEQ approval documented, representing one of the largest microgrid deployments in U.S. history. · source
2025-12-12permit
VoltaGrid LLC submitted an application to TCEQ for Permit 182467, PSD Permit PSDTX1692, and GHG PSD Permit GHGPSDTX266 to construct an electric power generation facility using catalytically controlled four-stroke lean-burn engines at 299 FM 604, Abilene, Shackelford County. · source
2025-12-16construction
Vantage Data Centers held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Frontier campus in Shackelford County as part of Oracle and OpenAI's Stargate expansion, with Kiewit confirmed as general contractor and the first facility scheduled for H2 2026 delivery and full completion by 2028. · source
2026-05-29coverage
KTXS reported Hamby residents seeking clarity on the Frontier campus water use; resident Lacie Rivera said residents were not consulted beforehand and called for a public meeting, while the City of Abilene declined on-camera interviews despite multiple requests. · source
2026-06-29permit
Vantage Data Centers TX307 LLC registered TDLR project TABS2026024102 for a new 398,117 sq ft data center building (Building 7) at 246 PR 1604, Abilene, Shackelford County, with an estimated cost of $1.15 billion, construction start November 2026, and completion April 2028; Kiewit listed as contractor. · source
2026-07-13coverage
KTXS reported community concerns about a second proposed data center (Project North by Bolt Data and Energy) in Shackelford County, with residents questioning whether long-term benefits outweigh costs and citing heavy truck traffic from existing Frontier construction between Abilene and Hamby. · source
2026-07-22coverage
KTXS reported County Judge Viertel responded to backlash over the second proposed data center, acknowledging residents' overall view is resistance with water as the most prominent and legitimate concern, and saying any agreement would require accountability provisions. · source
2026-08-03report
The Texas Tribune reported Governor Abbott announced a moratorium on new data center grid connections pending PUCT and ERCOT audits of over 1,800 queued projects; the freeze does not apply to data centers with on-site power generation such as Frontier's behind-the-meter microgrid. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (2 filed · 11 places to look)

Permits already on file (2)

Filings we have a source for — the record, not a place to look for one.

2026-06-29
Vantage Data Centers TX307 LLC registered TDLR project TABS2026024102 for a new 398,117 sq ft data center building (Building 7) at 246 PR 1604, Abilene, Shackelford County, with an estimated cost of $1.15 billion, construction start November 2026, and completion April 2028; Kiewit listed as contractor. · source
2025-12-12
VoltaGrid LLC submitted an application to TCEQ for Permit 182467, PSD Permit PSDTX1692, and GHG PSD Permit GHGPSDTX266 to construct an electric power generation facility using catalytically controlled four-stroke lean-burn engines at 299 FM 604, Abilene, Shackelford County. · source

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 32.730, -99.350 — 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

Stargate Abilene — Abilene (Taylor County), 29 mi Approved
Crusoe Abilene Expansion — Abilene, 34 mi Under construction
OpenAI Stargate Shackelford — Shackelford County, 34 mi Under construction
Google West Texas campuses — Haskell County (+ Armstrong Co.), 37 mi Approved
Project Red and Project Yellow — Hood County (Granbury area), 91 mi In review

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Vantage Frontier”, aigridwatch.com/projects/vantage-frontier-shackelford-tx, 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).