Chevron to Build Its First Data Center Power Plant in Texas Permian Area

Chevron Corp. has chosen West Texas as the placement for its first power-generation facility aimed to help an artificial-intelligence information heart, marking a big pivot by the oil big.

Chevron unveiled the plan for the preliminary 2.5-GW plant at a Nov. 12 investor day convention as a part of a 5‑yr technique that strikes the corporate past its conventional position as a gasoline provider into direct electrical energy era. The plant might broaden to 5GW at a future level, the corporate mentioned.

The pure gas-fired facility situated within the Permian Basin marks Chevron’s first transfer into powering AI workloads. This enterprise mannequin permits the corporate to bypass the regional grid and provide power immediately to a knowledge heart operator at a co-located website. Chevron acknowledged that operations are scheduled to start in 2027. 

The corporate didn’t present an replace on the precise website and mentioned it’s in unique negotiations with an unnamed operator. Additional particulars about this partnership haven’t been disclosed, nor had been particulars on contractor choice.

Chevron New Energies is main growth of the West Texas information‑heart energy facility. The division mentioned it’s drawing on the corporate’s pure fuel manufacturing and working expertise to assist meet the info heart energy wants. 

Division President Jeff Gustavson mentioned the Permian Basin website builds on Chevron’s current fuel manufacturing community, giving the challenge a aggressive edge. Within the Permian, we maintain a novel information benefit by our curiosity in
one out of each 5 wells, and we’re constructing AI‑pushed instruments to
unlock that potential, Gustavson mentioned. 

The ability will function in a “behind‑the‑meter” setup, supplying electrical energy immediately to a knowledge heart quite than by the regional grid. based on Gustavson. Framing the challenge as each an exterior alternative and an inner shift, he added: “We’re not simply working to energy the AI revolution—we’re making use of it throughout our personal enterprise to create extra worth.”

The announcement follows Chevron’s February 2025 partnership with fuel engineer producer GE Vernova and funding agency Engine No. 1 to develop as much as 4 pure fuel‑fired crops for U.S. information facilities. This system will use GE Vernova 7HA fuel generators put in alongside information‑heart websites at past Texas websites that weren’t recognized.

However the Institute for Vitality Economics and Monetary Evaluation, in a recent analysis of forecasted information heart energy load development for some Southeast utilities, projected a threat of overbuilding fuel infrastructure if forecasted information heart demand falls quick.