Energy Giant Signs Deals With Google, Meta And Exxon As Part Of A Massive Data Center Push
NextEra Energy has inked new data center development partnerships with Google, Meta and Exxon Mobil. The trio of deals announced this week anchors plans for up to 30 gigawatts of new data center capacity by 2035 as the country's largest energy developer leans into hyperscale data centers as a cornerstone of its business.
NextEra’s leadership unveiled plans on an investor call Monday to partner with Google to develop at least three gigawatt-scale data center campuses. The company also revealed it has secured power agreements with Meta to finance 2.5 gigawatts of new power generation capacity, along with plans for a 1.2-gigawatt power plant-connected data center campus being built through a partnership with Exxon.
One of the world’s largest developers, owners and operators of energy infrastructure, Florida-based NextEra has holdings ranging from solar farms and gas and nuclear power plants to utilities and gas pipelines. It is centering its growth strategy around codeveloping new power plants to create “data center hubs” for tech giants.
The firm said it is pursuing more than 50 gigawatts of potential opportunities with hyperscalers as the tech giants scramble for the fastest available path to the power needed to pursue their artificial intelligence ambitions.
“We believe that competing for new data centers is all about building new electrons,” NextEra CEO John Ketchum told investors Monday. “We believe this is the future of our business.”
With Meta, NextEra inked 2.5 gigawatts of renewable energy contracts across multiple U.S. markets. The vast majority of that total comes from nine solar power purchase agreements in the ERCOT, Southwest Power Pool and MISO grid systems. The remaining capacity will be in New Mexico in the form of solar and battery storage, with all projects expected to come online between 2026 and 2028.
Meta’s PPAs with NextEra constitute a traditional partnership structure between an energy developer and a hyperscaler, in which the tech giant prepurchases power to facilitate financing for new power generation — particularly renewables — to be added to the grid. Electricity from this new generation often doesn't directly power data centers.
NextEra’s deals with Google and Exxon, by contrast, exemplify how the energy giant is getting into data center development more directly.
Google and NextEra are codeveloping a trio of gigawatt-scale data center campuses with connected power plants that directly provide them with electricity. The location of these projects hasn't been disclosed, although NextEra’s leadership said the two firms are working to identify additional development sites.
With Exxon, NextEra is taking a more speculative approach, developing a 1.2-gigawatt natural gas power plant that the two energy behemoths hope will attract a hyperscaler to build out a campus on an adjacent 2,500-acre site. NextEra plans to pitch the site to hyperscalers in the first quarter of 2026, Ketchum said Monday.
The planned power plant also includes carbon capture technology developed by Exxon, with NextEra’s leadership framing the project as a test of Big Tech’s appetite for such a lower-carbon natural gas offering.
These deals are an early indication of NextEra's strategy through which it is looking to become a primary partner for the world’s largest tech firms as they develop more power generation alongside data center campuses as an alternative to electricity from regional grids. With wait times for grid connections for data centers stretching to nearly a decade in some markets, a growing share of developers are pursuing generation strategies that provide faster speed to power amid an AI infrastructure arms race.
“The market is heading towards bring your own generation,” Ketchum said. “We are positioning our company around BYOG, and we are uniquely positioned to win here.”
According to Ketchum, NextEra has identified more than 20 potential data center hubs and expects to grow this set of sites under consideration to over 40 by the end of 2026.
Among the opportunities being considered is a potential collaboration with utility Basin Electric Power Cooperative to jointly develop a 1,450-megawatt gas power plant in North Dakota that would serve a proposed data center complex.
NextEra has also partnered with gas producer Comstock Resources to build up to 8 gigawatts of gas generation intended to serve data centers in Central Texas. The companies are reportedly negotiating a deal with a major hyperscaler.
