Amazon backs 7.65 GW Texas gas plant for AI data center

Amazon confirmed it is financing a private 7.65 gigawatt natural gas plant in Pecos County, Texas, called GW Ranch, to power a new AI data center off the public grid. According to Ars Technica's coverage and other outlets, the site's air permit allows up to 33 million tons of CO2 a year, more than double the James H. Miller Jr. plant in Alabama, currently the largest US single emitter at around 16 million tons.

The developer is Pacifico Energy, and the link between three Amazon data center construction permits and the gas plant was first pieced together from satellite imagery by market intelligence firm Cleanview. Amazon says it still stands by its Climate Pledge to reach net-zero by 2040, and points to 40 carbon-free projects it has enabled in Texas totaling nearly 10 gigawatts. An Amazon spokesperson also conceded that "the world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge," while insisting the company's commitment "hasn't changed." Amazon's own reporting last year cited AI as a major reason its emissions rose 16%.

Climate groups pushed back hard. Margie Alt of the Climate Action Campaign said Amazon "chose to invest in a massive natural gas power plant" instead of building modern clean supply, and Kathryn Guerra of Public Citizen told reporters the project "will absolutely have a huge impact on the environment, and on public health." Pacifico has said it plans to layer 750 MW of solar and 1.8 GW of battery storage on top of the 35 gas turbines, which softens the picture only modestly given the permit ceiling.

The 33 million ton figure is a permit cap, not a forecast, and none of the retrieved coverage says how much of the 7.65 GW is actually contracted to Amazon versus what Pacifico may sell elsewhere, or when the site is scheduled to come online. For utilities, permitting agencies and rival cloud providers, the question worth following is whether GW Ranch becomes the template for the next wave of hyperscaler AI builds, or the moment regulators start writing tighter emissions caps into new interconnects.