Amazon's Texas AI campus power plant would become America's single largest CO₂ source

Amazon is building a 7.65 gigawatt natural gas power plant in Pecos County, West Texas, to power its first off-grid AI data center campus — and the project carries emissions permits that would make it the single largest source of CO₂ pollution in the United States, according to a report first published by Cleanview and confirmed by Tom's Hardware.

The facility is being developed with Pacifico Energy at its GW Ranch site, using 35 custom natural gas turbines. Environmental permits authorize up to 33 million tons of CO₂ emissions per year — a volume that exceeds any existing single industrial polluter in the country. The plant is targeting initial power delivery in Q1 2027. Construction permits for data center buildings were filed in Texas in early August 2026, with satellite imagery from late July already showing active land clearing at the site.

Going Off-Grid to Beat the Queue

The off-grid design reflects a growing bottleneck that has slowed AI infrastructure across the US: grid interconnection queues are so congested that waiting for a connection can delay projects by several years. By generating power on-site, Amazon can build and operate on its own schedule, independent of grid operators.

The Texas campus won't run entirely on gas. Plans also include 1.8 GW of battery storage and 750 MWac of solar capacity. Amazon says it intends to connect to the grid as interconnection timelines allow and that on-site generation will not raise electricity costs for Texas consumers.

A Problem for Amazon's Climate Pledge

Amazon is a co-founder of The Climate Pledge, a corporate commitment to reach net-zero carbon by 2040 — a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement timeline. A data center complex whose dedicated power plant is authorized to emit 33 million tons of CO₂ annually sits awkwardly against that pledge. The company's total emissions have risen sharply as AI infrastructure demand has accelerated.

A Pattern Across the Industry

Amazon isn't alone in rethinking how AI infrastructure gets powered. Nvidia is reportedly weighing a $250 billion commitment to OpenAI's planned 10 GW data center campus in Ohio. More than 500 data center projects across the US are facing local government resistance or outright bans as communities push back against the land and energy demands of the AI buildout.

The West Texas project illustrates how the race to build AI infrastructure is rewriting the economics of energy policy and corporate climate commitments at the same time. As reported by Tom's Hardware, the scale of the authorized emissions would put this single facility in a class of its own among US industrial sites.