It’s true we do things bigger in Texas. But bigger doesn’t always mean better.
Unfortunately, if you are to believe former Texas Governor Rick Perry, that also means constructing the largest AI data center in the world.
What is Project Matador?
Project Matador, also known as the President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus is under construction about 12 miles northeast of Amarillo. As of the time this blog is released, if actually constructed, it would be the largest data center on earth, and it would be powered by the largest combination of gas, nuclear, solar and battery storage facilities ever built.
The key word is “if.” Recent reports say that one of Fermi's first "tenants" already backed out of the project.
December 4 Community Meeting in Panhandle
On December 4, 2025, hundreds of local residents, along with some college students bused in by the company behind the project, gathered at a community center in the town of Panhandle, adjacent to the proposed 5,236-acre site. The meeting focused on one of the first required permits for the project: a series of air quality permits that would allow Fermi America to build and operate 93 gas-fired turbines around the perimeter of the AI data center. If actually constructed, the facility’s more than 5,100 MW of gas capacity would make it the largest gas plant in the United States.
While Lone Star Chapter staff members were unable to attend the meeting, we’ve been in discussions with community members who attended to express their concerns about the data center’s technology, the high number of proposed gas plants, and the looming threat of water loss due to the demand of the gas plants and data centers themselves. The project involves building power plants to attract the AI and data centers. Fermi itself does not propose to build the data centers.
Heading up the project, and playing the role of Head Cheerleader, is Rick Perry. His co-pilot is co-founder and fellow investor Toby Neugebauer, the founder of Quantum Energy Partners, a private energy equity firm that invested heavily in oil and gas particularly in the Barnet Shale. Neugebauer is also a top donor to politicians like Perry and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Rounding out the team is the community liaison, former Amarillo Mayor Trent Sisemore, who operates Fermi out of a humble office in Amarillo just above a local bank.
According to the TCEQ database, over 279 comments from community members were received - the bulk of them in opposition - including 63 requests for a contested case hearing, as well as 21 requests for another public meeting.
"Amarillo is lucky to have a community that is curious and active in local government decision making. When a project like Project Matador comes to our community, we have questions. Our community has organized town halls, encouraged hundreds of people to leave public comments, and has worked with other organizers across the country to build strong coalitions. My role has mainly been in communications, research and planning. These projects are designed to be complicated, so it has been invaluable to take a hard look at this project and make its impacts easy to understand for our community. I believe the most important thing we have done is getting out into our community and talking to people directly about the dangers this project poses."
- Chase B, Randall County Resident
Concerns About Air Quality and Gas Turbines
Fermi’s requested permits are unusual in that the company is seeking one “PSD” permit to operate over 5100 MWs of gas, even though many of the turbines are separately operated as “six-on-one” units that collectively act like combined cycle power plants. (In addition, the company also has a separate permit to authorize global warming gas emissions).
The proposed amount of potential air pollution is gigantic. Devastating.
Fermi Equipment Holdco LLC, NSR Air Permit Application Project Matador
Health and Environmental Risks
Those who have assessed the proposed permit believe it is replete with problems, including the failure to require Best Available Control Technology for certain pollutants, inaccuracies in the modeling, and no required monitoring of particular matter. Particulate matter is highly damaging to the lungs and poses a significant health threat to nearby residents, and the many, many cattle in the area.
Local Economy and Land Use Impacts
A copy of our comments can be found here, while a copy of a request for a contested case hearing by the main group opposing the site can be found here. The area north of Amarillo includes productive farm land, and cattle ranching and meat packing and processing facilities - including a Tyson Food meat production facility which is a stone’s throw from Project Matador.
Fermi is promising to build its own grid to power the massive 11 GW data center, and therefore not costing area ratepayers any of the needed infrastructure. Still, it’s a vague promise given the need to at least initially tap into SPS/EXCEL’s grid.
What’s Next in the Permitting Process
Because hundreds of Texans wrote in comments on the gas plant permit, including the Sierra Club, TCEQ staff will need to respond to those comments. Some of the commenters, including the main opposition group - Panhandle Taxpayers for Transparency - asked for a Contested Case Hearing before an administrative judge at the State Office of Administrative Hearings. Lawyers believe that even if a contested case hearing wasn’t requested in the initial notice of the permit, there still should be a short period after response to comments have been issued to ask for a hearing. So more comments are likely forthcoming.
Fermi’s Multiphase Energy Plan, Including Nuclear
Fermi’s Multiphase plan includes a massive combined-cycle and single-cycle gas plant, solar, and potentially four Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors.
Fermi has already applied to the NRC for permission to build the nuclear power plants, which would be located just south of the Federal Pantex Nuclear Decommissioning Facility. Locating new nuclear plants in the same area as the federal facility could be highly problematic, experts say.
Gaining approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is difficult, as is financing and operating a nuclear power plant. In the last 20 years, the only new nuclear plants that have been added in the US have been the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia, with Unit 3 starting in 2023 and Unit 4 in 2024, marking the first new large-scale reactors in decades. Both units were years behind schedule and cost billions of dollars more than initially promised. The Matador Project is ambitious and, most believe, unrealistic in its scope and promises. In the last two weeks, the value of Fermi’s stocks have plunged by more than a third due in large part to a potential AI tenant and investor pulling out of the project.
Project Matador and the Texas Data Center Boom
Fermi’s Project Matador is just one of hundreds of proposed AI, data center, and/or bitcoin operations in development all over Texas. While the Sierra Club knows that some of this growth is inevitable, the speculative nature of this project and many others, as well as its outsized use of energy, water, and the problematic generation of pollution, are big causes for concern. To many community members, Project Matador offers more burdens and potential dangers than hope for a better future.