Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, is reportedly finalizing construction loans to finance a massive data center project in Texas that is already leased to artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. The project, operated by Nexus Data Centers, is valued at over $5 billion for its initial phase, with loans expected to be secured in the coming weeks.
The 2,800-acre facility is strategically located near major gas pipelines operated by Enterprise Products Partners, Energy Transfer, and Atmos Energy. This allows the center to be powered by its own on-site gas turbines, a design choice intended to bypass public grid dependencies, avoid surge pricing, and ensure a reliable energy supply for power-intensive AI workloads. The site is expected to deliver approximately 500 megawatts of power capacity by late 2026—enough to power roughly 500,000 homes—with long-term plans to scale to a massive 7.7 gigawatts.
Alphabet's involvement is primarily financial, leveraging its strong creditworthiness to help the project secure bank funding at more favorable rates. A consortium of banks is competing to arrange financing for the first phase by mid-year. This move deepens the existing partnership between Google and Anthropic, which already includes Google supplying custom TPU clusters via Google Cloud for AI model training. The financing arrangement effectively transitions Google from a cloud supplier to a direct infrastructure backer for Anthropic.
This development occurs against a backdrop of heightened regulatory and political scrutiny for Anthropic. A U.S. federal judge recently granted Anthropic a preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking a Pentagon directive that sought to label the company a national security risk and halt federal use of its AI tools. The judge described the government's actions as "arbitrary" and a potential violation of First Amendment protections, following a standoff over the military's desired use of Anthropic's technology.
