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Fort Bliss Data Center

Last updated

Carlyle Group Fort Bliss campus
Pre-construction

The Army wants a 3-gigawatt AI data center on Fort Bliss land in far east El Paso (more electricity than all 460,000 of El Paso Electric's customers combined) and has conditionally picked the Carlyle Group to build and operate it. Nothing is signed: environmental review is pending, the power source is undecided between combined-cycle gas and an off-grid independent producer, and the Army's "water neutral" pledge over the Hueco Bolson aquifer has no published mechanism.

3.0 GWPlanned power
Developer
Carlyle Group (conditionally selected for exclusive negotiations; would pay to build and operate)
Owner
U.S. Army (land): developer conditionally selected, no executed agreement
Tenant
Not disclosed: Carlyle would use the majority of capacity commercially, with a secure portion reserved for Department of Defense workloads
Power detail
"3 gigawatts by 2029" per Deputy Undersecretary of the Army David Fitzgerald, with an initial operating capacity of about 100 MW on the compute side targeted for 2027, a stated requirement, not a contracted load
Power source
Undecided: combined-cycle natural gas turbines described by Army officials as the “most likely” source; a Carlyle-or-third-party off-grid independent power producer is the stated alternative, and no formal service request has been made to El Paso Electric
Cooling
Not disclosed: the Army states the facility will be “water neutral” (an Army claim, not a disclosed figure or design); water would come from Fort Bliss wells drawing on the Hueco Bolson aquifer, with possible Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant involvement and El Paso Water available only as backup
Compute
Hyperscale AI/DoD workloads (Army cites drone-warfare, targeting, and secure cloud systems); hardware not disclosed
Construction start
TBD: environmental review pending; Army says construction must begin “in the not-so-distant future” to hit the late-2027 target
Est. completion
Initial operations targeted late 2027; 3 GW by 2029
Grid strategy
TBD
County
El Paso
Nearest city
El Paso (far east: Loop 375 & Montana Ave.)
Announced
2026-04-30