From Ross to Bosque County to McLennan, the debate over massive data center projects has arrived in our backyard. Here's what's happening, what residents are saying, and what local businesses should understand.
It's no longer a rumor or a distant headline. Data centers — the massive, power-hungry server campuses that underpin everything from AI to cloud storage — have arrived in our backyard. In Bosque County, one is already under construction. In Ross, residents packed a fire station to push back against another. In Hill County, site selectors have been circling. And in McLennan County, a proposed $10 billion facility near Lacy Lakeview would be the largest industrial development in the county's history. This is a real conversation happening at city council meetings, in county courthouses, and around dinner tables across Central Texas right now — and it's not a simple one.
A data center is a facility packed with servers, networking hardware, and cooling systems that store and process data at massive scale. Modern hyperscale campuses — the kind being proposed in Texas — can span hundreds of acres, draw hundreds of megawatts of electricity (enough to power tens of thousands of homes), and consume millions of gallons of water per day for cooling. They are the physical backbone of AI models, streaming platforms, cloud services, and digital finance. Companies like CyrusOne, Infrakey, Microsoft, and Amazon are among those actively developing or siting facilities in and around Central Texas.
This isn't speculative development pipeline news — several projects are already in motion in counties immediately surrounding Waco.
The opposition to data centers in Central Texas isn't fringe or uninformed. It's being raised by longtime landowners, farmers, environmental advocates, and civic leaders who have specific, concrete concerns. The Texas Tribune and The Waco Bridge have documented community meetings across the state where these concerns are being voiced loudly and in detail.
Mid-sized data centers can consume over 300,000 gallons of water per day. Larger facilities may use 4.5 million gallons or more daily — comparable to a town of 10,000–50,000 people. The Houston Advanced Research Center estimates Texas data centers will demand up to 399 billion gallons annually by 2030, potentially 6.6% of the state's total water use. In a drought-prone state with already-stressed aquifers, residents are asking a direct question: where does that water come from, and what does that leave for us?
ERCOT forecasts data centers will consume over 12,700 megawatts in 2026, more than doubling in 2027. A single hyperscale campus can draw hundreds of megawatts — the equivalent of powering hundreds of thousands of homes. Residents across Texas remember the 2021 winter grid failure and are wary of adding significant new demand loads to a system that is already under scrutiny.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has publicly called the conversion of prime farmland to data center sites a 'real and growing threat to our food supply.' Some proposals involve thousands of acres of agricultural land. Longtime ranching and farming families have raised concerns about noise, light, traffic during construction, and what it means for the rural communities they've built their lives around.
Many data center projects arrive with requests for significant tax incentives — sometimes running for decades. Critics argue this reduces the near-term tax base while benefits flow primarily to existing large landowners and corporate developers rather than ordinary residents. The question being asked: are communities giving away too much to get a project that may not deliver the long-term returns promised?
Data centers are capital-intensive, not labor-intensive. Permanent on-site staffing at a large facility often runs in the dozens to low hundreds of positions. Construction jobs are temporary. Residents in communities like Ross have explicitly raised this point: when a company projects thousands of acres of development and billions in investment, but the permanent workforce is 150 people, questions about the trade-off are fair.
Many proposed data centers are being sited in unincorporated areas outside city limits, where county governments have far fewer regulatory tools. Counties can deny tax breaks, but they cannot easily impose zoning restrictions, noise ordinances, or environmental requirements the way a city can. Residents and advocates have pushed for stronger local control, with some calling for moratoriums on new approvals until better frameworks are in place.
In December 2025, residents of Ross, Texas — a small Bosque County community — gathered twice at the local volunteer fire station to voice opposition to the proposed Infrakey data center. The meetings drew significant regional press coverage and contributed to the broader statewide conversation about local communities' ability to push back on large industrial projects.
Whether the data center debate affects your land, your water, or just your curiosity — Scott Applications helps Central Texas businesses build digital infrastructure that's always yours. See our web design and software services at scottapplications.com/services/website-design.
See Our ServicesThe companies proposing these projects and the local officials backing them aren't ignoring the concerns — they're making specific counter-arguments that also deserve fair hearing.
| Issue | Community Concern | Developer/Official Response |
|---|---|---|
| Water use | Aquifer depletion, drought stress, millions of gallons daily | Reclaimed wastewater, closed-loop cooling, reduced freshwater dependency |
| Power grid | ERCOT strain, reliability risk, rising consumer costs | SB 6 curtailment rules, on-site backup generation requirements |
| Jobs | Too few permanent positions for the scale of disruption | Construction jobs, local procurement provisions, indirect economic activity |
| Tax abatements | Revenue giveaways that benefit landowners, not residents | Long-term tax base growth that exceeds abatement value after 10–15 years |
| Local control | Limited county tools to regulate once a deal is done | Negotiated performance conditions, road repair, buy-local clauses |
| Farmland | Permanent loss of agricultural and rural heritage land | Industrial land designation, Agriculture Freedom Zones proposed |
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Whatever side of this debate you land on, the data center buildout in and around Waco carries real secondary effects for local businesses — regardless of whether any given project ultimately proceeds.
Regardless of where data centers land, your Central Texas business needs a strong digital foundation — a fast website, local SEO, and tools you own. See what we build for Waco-area businesses at scottapplications.com/services/website-design.
This isn't a story about whether data centers are good or bad. It's a story about whether communities have the tools, information, and voice to shape how they arrive. In Central Texas, that conversation is actively underway — at fire stations, county courthouses, and in the state legislature. The projects are real, the concerns are legitimate, the economic arguments are real, and the outcomes are not yet decided. The most useful thing any resident or business owner can do right now is stay informed and engaged — because the decisions being made in the next 12 to 24 months will define what this region looks like for a generation.
This post is a factual overview based on publicly reported information from The Texas Tribune, The Waco Bridge, and other regional sources as of April 2026. It is not an endorsement of any project, developer, or position on data center development. We will update this post as the situation evolves.
Scott Applications builds fast, mobile-first websites and custom software for Central Texas businesses — owned by you, built to rank. See our Waco web design services at scottapplications.com/services/website-design/waco-tx.
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