New $700 million data center in Temple will be near Robinson Family Farm
TEMPLE, Texas (KWTX) - Plans to build a $700 million hyperscale data center in Temple were unanimously approved by the city just last month.
The facility, which belongs to Rowan Digital Infrastructure, will be located on 700 acres along Bob White Road.
What is a data center?
Nathaniel Brown, a spokesperson for Rowan, explains that it’s something you use anytime you connect to the internet.
“This is the infrastructure that supports our modern life, whether it be accessing your medical records or your banking information,” he said.
Since 2020, Rowan has helped develop several data centers across the nation. The reason they selected Temple for this new facility is because they already had a data center there.
“That means that the energy for this project is actually, it’s already secured. So the impact should be less,” Brown shared.
Adding that they’ve formed a great relationship with the city of Temple.
Megan Price, a spokesperson for the city, shared their excitement at what this new facility will bring.
“You know long-term careers, and then other benefits as well for our communities such as vendor and supplier partnerships that will lead to increased economic activity,” she explained
Brown says this will also generate a lot of tax revenue. “Those dollars are shared among the taxing jurisdiction, so the city of Temple, the local school district,” he said.
However, data centers require a lot of resources to operate, such as energy and water, often raising concerns about the impact on locals and their businesses.
Rowan’s old data center, which has now been decommissioned and will be turned into a warehouse, is just across the street from the Robinson Family Farm, and their new facility will be right next door.
“The data center will be about 1,000 feet from this fence line right here, is where it will start,” said Helen Robinson, the co-owner of the farm.
She adds that they weren’t impacted by the old facility, and despite some initial concerns they’re not worried about the new facility.
“Honestly, for us it was never an issue,” Robinson shared, “from what I’ve [learned], sustainability is their top priority.”
Brown emphasized to KWTX that sustainability is at the core of everything that they do at Rowan.
“For the facility itself Rowan’s lending a mechanical cooling system that minimizes and reuses water… you know it adopts energy efficient technologies, and we’re also exploring ways that we can be water positive,” he explained.
Rowan also has a utility service agreement with Temple to make sure they aren’t overusing the city’s resources.
“This agreement will kind of outline those specific amounts of water and electricity, and kind of the capacity of the project,” said Price.
Construction will begin as soon as this fall and will last 12 to 18 months, working with the Robinson Family Farm to make sure this won’t affect their business on the weekends.
And this isn’t the only new data center coming to Central Texas, Stargate announcing two weeks ago they will be building an AI data center in Milam county.
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