Sharon AI, a US-based high-performance computing company, and New Era Helium, a New Mexico-headquartered energy infrastructure firm, have signed a letter of intent to acquire a 200-acre site in Ector County, Texas, for a 250 megawatt (MW) Net Zero energy data centre.
The project aims to power artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing while reducing its carbon footprint through integrated carbon capture technology.
New Era Helium will supply natural gas to the facility and develop its supporting energy infrastructure. The site will include a gas-fired power plant equipped with carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) systems, with captured carbon dioxide potentially used in enhanced oil recovery.
This initiative reflects the growing intersection between digital infrastructure and energy transition, as data centres increasingly turn to low-carbon power sources. The project is expected to create economic benefits for Ector County and Roswell, New Mexico, where New Era Helium operates.
The announcement comes amid a surge in demand for large-scale data centres and power capacity. “The recently announced Stargate Project, backed by companies such as OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, plans to invest hundreds of billions into new AI infrastructure across the United States,” said Wolf Schubert, CEO of Sharon AI.
Earlier this week, energy technology company Baker Hughes partnered with Frontier Infrastructure to accelerate the development of large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) and power solutions in the US.
With a planned 256 MW of power generation, the initiative aims to help meet the rising energy demands from AI and data centre operations across Texas, Wyoming, and the US Mountain West region.
Global electricity consumption is forecast to grow at close to 4% annually through to 2027 as power use climbs in a range of sectors, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report. This energy increase creates competition for industrial gases for the renewables that are needed to drive the energy transition – in particular for green hydrogen but also to improve the sustainability of power-hungry ASUs.
One of the key demand drivers is data centre power consumption, as data and digital use continues to soar at a time when technology is increasingly pivotal to our workplaces and homes – and set to be even more integral in an age of artificial intelligence (AI).
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