Galaxy Digital wins approval for $400 million Texas AI data center campus

Crypto infrastructure companies are expanding further in Texas as demand grows for AI, high-performance computing and Bitcoin mining capacity. Galaxy Digital said it acquired about 500 acres in McGregor, Texas, for roughly $7.5 million after securing local approval for Project Merlin, a development previously described as involving more than $400 million of investment across six to eight data center buildings. The first phase is expected to provide 74 megawatts of capacity, with power deliveries targeted for 2028, and Galaxy said the site could reach several hundred megawatts by 2030 as additional transmission infrastructure is built. The company said the transaction generated $7.5 million of revenue for the city of McGregor, that it is prepared to finance its own substation and related improvements, and that the campus could add at least $130 million to McGregor’s tax base. Galaxy said the initial 74 MW phase sits just below Texas’s 75 MW large-load threshold, meaning later expansion above that level would require coordination with the utility under ERCOT’s evolving interconnection framework for major new loads. The company also said the campus will use closed-loop cooling and support several hundred construction and trade jobs before permanent operations roles are added. The McGregor buildout extends Galaxy’s broader Texas data center strategy beyond its Helios facility in Dickens County, where Phase I was completed in July and began delivering about 200 MW of gross power and 133 MW of critical IT capacity to CoreWeave under a 15-year lease. Galaxy has separately raised financing tied to Helios Phase II, while it has not yet announced an anchor tenant, project budget or funding structure for McGregor. Separately, MARA Holdings said it agreed to acquire a 1,200-acre powered site in Matagorda County with access to up to 2 gigawatts of power capacity, which it plans to develop for AI and HPC workloads as well as Bitcoin mining. The announcements came as Texas continues to attract large power-intensive digital infrastructure projects because of its large power market, relatively low electricity costs, available land and the ERCOT grid.