The Lone Star State may surpass Virginia as the largest domestic data center market by 2030, according to JLL’s North America 2025 Year-End Data Center report.

Texas currently has roughly 4 gigawatts of data center capacity with 6.5 GW under construction, according to the report released Tuesday. In contrast, Virginia has 8 GW of data centers and 4 GW under construction.

Today, 64% of data centers under construction in the United States are located in markets outside of the young industry’s historical hot spots, with a new wave of growth centering in West Texas, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Ohio, the report said.

Texas is a lure for data center developers due to its “abundant energy resources, ample land availability and a business-friendly operating environment,” according to the report.

Currently, the Dallas-Fort Worth area is the largest data center zone in Texas, with roughly 2.4 GW of capacity. Austin is second with 1.7 GW of capacity but is set to double in size in the next two years, JLL said.

Current data centers under construction or planned in Texas include the GW Ranch, an 8,000-acre campus in Pecos County; the OpenAI/Oracle/SoftBank Stargate project near Abilene; the 2,600-acre Comanche Circle park outside Dallas-Fort Worth; and VivaVerse Solutions’ 774K SF center at the former Compaq Computer campus in Northwest Houston.

In addition, Microsoft filed plans to build a nearly 200K SF data center in Castroville.

For now, Virginia still holds the crown as the state with the most data center capacity. The commonwealth is home to 663 operational centers, with 595 more under construction or planned, according to Axios. Many of these centers are located in Loudoun County’s “Data Center Alley” in the northern part of the state.

But over the past year, some Virginia residents and government officials increasingly have pushed back against the state’s data center boom. Data centers were a hot-button topic in last year’s statewide elections, one that likely led to an unprecedented blue sweep across state offices. Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who took office on Jan. 17, campaigned on regulating data center growth and reducing energy costs for consumers.

Some data center projects have faced pushback in Texas as well.

Unlike Virginia, Texas is facing a water crisis, and data center opponents argue that the region lacks a sufficient supply to support so many facilities. Last week, the Public Utility Commission of Texas announced it is working with the Texas Water Development Board to ask that data centers report their water usage.

On Monday, Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra announced he would formally request that county officials impose a moratorium on permits for new industrial developments with high water demands in the Central Texas county. This was in response to a proposed 200-acre center near San Marcos. In north Central Texas, a call for a similar data center moratorium in Hood County was voted down 3-2 by county commissioners earlier this month.