Northwest Austin Data Center Rises as Neighbors Say They Were Kept in the Dark
Neighbors in Northwest Austin are frustrated by a lack of transparency from SB Energy regarding its Cosmos Technology Campus, which federal filings reveal to be a 50-megawatt data center, despite being pitched as an office and engineering lab. The city of Austin is now considering new zoning regulations for data centers, and the state of Texas has implemented a moratorium on new large data center grid connections.
Residents in Northwest Austin's River Place and Four Points neighborhoods are expressing significant frustration over the Cosmos Technology Campus, a 107-acre site developed by SB Energy. While the company initially pitched the project as an office and engineering lab for semiconductor firm Graphcore, federal securities filings reveal it to be a high-performance computing data center campus capable of drawing up to 50 megawatts of critical IT capacity.
Neighbors, including Linda Bailey and Marc Duchen, allege that SB Energy representatives deliberately avoided using the term "data center" in community meetings, despite corporate paperwork explicitly defining the project as such. The site, originally zoned for research and development, holds necessary building permits, but its true scale has alarmed residents due to its high electricity and water demands. Austin Energy is reportedly upgrading substations for the campus, while Austin Water is reviewing service requests, with both utilities generally obligated to serve demand within their territories.
In response to growing data center development across the state, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has directed ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission to audit all data centers seeking grid connections and to postpone proposed facilities exceeding 25 megawatts during this review. The Governor also mandated the Texas Water Development Board to enforce reporting requirements on major water consumers, including data centers. Locally, the Austin City Council adopted a resolution to create a specific data center zoning category and new regulations to mitigate impacts on local resources, with an update expected in December.
Amidst these developments, a community town hall is scheduled for September 17 to address residents' concerns about noise, light, and air pollution from the Cosmos project, which is part of a larger Central Texas footprint being developed by SoftBank-linked entities, including a separate 1.2-gigawatt data center complex in Milam County. The first phase of construction at Cosmos is slated for completion in spring 2027.