PowerPlay AI is developing an initial 400 megawatts of behind-the-meter power for an AI data center in the greater Abilene area of West Texas, with delivery targeted for 2028. The company is building the project through a joint venture with a Nasdaq-listed Neocloud partner.
The announcement follows work on site feasibility and infrastructure assessment, plus land assembly and acquisition. The joint venture has now moved into active execution: it is progressing natural gas service agreements and working toward the formal selection of a preferred independent power producer once its request-for-proposal process concludes.
Behind-the-meter power is generated on site rather than drawn from the public grid, letting a project supply a facility like a data center directly. The site already has natural gas and fiber infrastructure in place, and sits on unincorporated land free of zoning restrictions. It is also near multiple gigawatt-scale AI campuses already operating in the area, with others under construction or recently proposed.
"Power has become the defining constraint on AI," said Luke Velterop of PowerPlay AI. He said interconnection queues now stretch into the 2030s, and that federal policy is calling on industry to "build, bring or buy" the energy AI demand requires.
