Amazon has confirmed the acquisition of land in Pecos County, Texas, for the construction of a campus of data centers with autonomous power supply. The project, implemented through the Amazon Data Services structure, involves the construction of the GW Ranch gas power plant with a capacity of 7.65 GW, which will make it the largest in the United States among similar facilities. Construction of three buildings with an area of about 17,560 square meters. An m with a total investment of 900 million dollars is planned for the period from August to December 2026. The contractor is Pacifico Energy, which will install 35 gas turbines on the site. This approach allows the company to bypass lengthy procedures for connecting to the Texas Common Power Grid (ERCOT) and speed up capacity commissioning without increasing tariffs for end users.

The implementation of the project is associated with significant environmental impact. In January, the project received approval for annual emissions of up to 33 million tons of carbon dioxide, which exceeds the figures of the largest coal-fired power plant in Alabama, and also involves emissions of more than 12,000 tons of regulated pollutants, including soot and carbon monoxide. Human rights organizations express concern about the impact of such emissions on public health and the environment. This initiative conflicts with Amazon's climate commitments under the Climate Pledge initiative, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. Representatives of the company admit that the growing pressures from artificial intelligence create obstacles in this way, however, they point to parallel support for 40 carbon-free energy projects in the region.

Amazon's decision reflects the industry-wide trend towards the transition to autonomous energy generation. Large technology companies, including Microsoft, Google and xAI, as well as representatives of the crypto industry such as MARA Holdings and Galaxy Digital, are actively developing the practice of building isolated power facilities. In Texas, which has free land resources and a developed gas infrastructure, about 90 GW of such capacities have already been announced. Cryptomineers who previously used this model to access cheap energy are now repurposing their platforms for high-performance computing for AI. According to analysts, the combined implementation of the announced autonomous generation projects by the largest operators can lead to annual emissions of more than 200 million tons of CO₂, which is comparable to the emissions of an entire country.