North Texas has wide-open spaces. It’s one of the reasons companies have flocked here. Thursday, Google announced a $1 billion project in Midlothian. NBC 5’s Phil Prazan investigates what that will mean for North Texas.
Wide open spaces, low taxes and low regulations are all things that convince data center companies to come to North Texas—the latest launched from Google. Thursday morning Google announced a billion-dollar new project in Midlothian.
Centered around Red Oak and Midlothian, Google named North Texas a "Google Cloud Region" in 2022, meaning more data centers are coming.
“We look at things like the talent in the area, land, your electrical infrastructure. And then a big piece of that is a community that wants to partner with us," said Yolande Piazza, VP of financial services for Google Cloud.
Piazza announced with local leaders Thursday morning, alongside Sen. Ted Cruz, R - Texas, and Congressman Jake Ellzey, R - Midlothian.
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New data centers south of the Metroplex will be the computing power behind artificial intelligence, Google Maps, and Google Cloud.
These data centers use a ton of energy and some state leaders have scrutinized the large facilities. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick earlier this summer questioned whether the state needs power-hungry data centers sucking up energy when ERCOT's energy grid is stretched to the limits during hot summer days.
“We work with them when we see pressure on the grid. How do we manage our output? It’s a collaboration. And we’re very aware that we need to be as responsible as everyone else in that space," said Piazza.
Lone Star Politics
Covering politics throughout the state of Texas.
Senator Ted Cruz told the crowd gathered at the Google office Thursday that he believes the impacts of artificial intelligence may be as big as the internet revolution in the 90s.
"The result was incredible. The wealth and prosperity and jobs," said Sen. Cruz.
There's no set number of total jobs yet for the project but Cruz and Google leaders predict it will be in the "hundreds" of full-time employees.
“We have an environment of low taxes; of low and reasonable and predictable regulations. We have an environment that supports innovation. And we have to keep doing that," said Cruz.
This billion-dollar project brings the total investment from Google up to $2.7 billion, including a $330 million project in nearby Red Oak.
