In Texas, where data centers have been embraced with open arms and cheap land, Governor Greg Abbott has hit the brakes. Less than a year after declaring Texas the epicenter of AI development, new connections to the power grid are on hold until developers provide more information about their projects’ impacts.

The Republican governor directed regulators in an August 3 announcement at the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the grid operators at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to perform a comprehensive verification and audit. This move comes as ERCOT oversees a power grid that operates separately from the rest of the US, providing services to most of Texas.

Texas has aggressively courted data center development with its availability of cheap land and abundant energy resources, along with offering state incentives like tax breaks and fewer regulations. The state is on track to surpass Virginia in becoming the largest US data center market. However, the recent AI boom threatens to overwhelm the Texas grid, despite the state leading the country in adding new power generation.

The ERCOT interconnection queue currently includes more than 1,800 projects representing over 474 gigawatts’ worth of requests to connect to the Texas grid—more than five times Texas' record peak electricity demand—and about 90 percent of those come from data centers. That unprecedented load growth could endanger the reliability and stability of the Texas electric grid.

Many of these projects may never materialize for various reasons, but ERCOT has still forecast that data center demand and other factors could drive statewide electricity demand to double the current record by 2032, according to The Texas Tribune.