AI Landing in our Backyard
Two mega data centers are rising near El Paso. Read below to see what this means for your business and how you can get started with AI integrations.
Welcome to Issue #00
The Borderplex: A New Hotspot
West Texas is a surprisingly good area to build a data center in, and Silicon Valley has finally noticed. El Paso's dry climate is perfect for efficient evaporative cooling, since dry air can absorb water vapor much more efficiently. Our location in the center of the continent, far from tectonic plate boundaries, gives us a stable climate and low natural disaster risk, which is perfect for data centers.
In Northeast El Paso, Meta (the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is building one of the largest AI data centers in the country. Meta says it's pouring more than $10 billion into the project and aims to scale it to a full gigawatt of computing power by around 2028. It broke ground last October. The company projects more than 300 permanent jobs and over 4,000 construction workers at the busiest stretch of the build.
Just across the state line in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, an even bigger project is taking shape: "Project Jupiter" (locally known as Project Miner), part of OpenAI and Oracle's "Stargate" effort. Doña Ana County approved up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds for it (a financing cap, not county spending) with an initial $50 billion planned over five years.
Cheap flat land in the desert turns out to be just what Meta and OpenAI need.
Not everyone's cheering
Projects this size come with real concerns. To power the El Paso center, El Paso Electric has proposed a new 366-megawatt natural-gas plant (Meta would cover the costs for the first five years). It still needs state approvals, and it's become the heart of a local debate over water, air, and the electric grid.
In late May, El Paso City Council voted unanimously to stop offering incentives to any future data centers (that vote doesn't undo Meta's existing deal). Across the line, Jupiter faces its own questions over water use and an ongoing lawsuit. Once it's running, Meta is expected to become El Paso's single biggest property taxpayer, paying around $15 million a year to the city, even after an 80% tax break that can run up to 35 years.
The water question is the big one, and both the scary version and the reassuring version are oversimplified. I wrote a full breakdown of what's myth and what's real: Data Centers and Water on the Border: Myth, Reality, and What We Still Don't Know
What this means for you
Here's why you should care:
- There's work to bid on: Meta routes its subcontractors through two general contractors, JE Dunn and Hensel Phelps, and posts jobs on Meta Careers. On the New Mexico side, hiring for Jupiter runs through Doña Ana Community College and STACK (apprentice roles around $27 to $30 an hour).
- There's grant money: Meta has put $500,000 into a workforce grant with El Paso schools, and a community grants program opens this fall.
- Signs of change: Projects this size tend to lift commercial real estate, hotels, and restaurants, which lean on a workforce that stretches across the river into Juárez. If you serve people or businesses, more activity is coming your way.
AI quick hits for your business
SpaceX goes public tomorrow.
The biggest IPO in history prices tonight and starts trading Friday on Nasdaq under SPCX. Fixed price of $135 a share, $75 billion raised, valuation near $1.8 trillion. Investor demand has reportedly topped $250 billion. And it's not the only IPO incoming. Anthropic and OpenAI are prepping their own debuts. I'm putting together a full breakdown of the 2026 AI IPO wave for a future issue.
The most powerful AI yet just went public
This week Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, the most capable AI model it has ever made public. The model is so good at finding security holes in software that Anthropic kept it locked to a handful of cybersecurity partners for months, and the public version ships with hard limits on sensitive cybersecurity and biology requests.
Why you care: you won't be buying this one, but it's a clear signal that AI that can probe software for weaknesses, for attackers and defenders, is getting better fast. Basic cyber hygiene isn't optional anymore. I wrote a research paper on fully autonomous, AI-run cyberattacks if you want to go down the rabbit hole: StuxSwarm →
Your Microsoft apps are about to get an AI helper
Starting July 1, Microsoft is rolling out new small-business plans with "Copilot" built right into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
Why you care: if you already pay for Microsoft 365, AI shows up inside the tools you use every day.
That "urgent" call from the boss could be fake
AI can now copy a familiar voice from just a few seconds of audio. Scammers are abusing it. The FTC specifically warns that small businesses are targets, and Consumer Reports found that 4 of 6 cheap or free voice-cloning tools have no real safeguards.
Why you care: a cloned voice can "authorize" a fake payment. Remember this: if a money request feels urgent, hang up and call back a number you know, and set a "safe word" with your team and family. Be careful with what you post on social media.