West Texas will soon be home to the world’s largest advanced energy and intelligence campus

LUBBOCK, Texas — Texas Tech University (TTU) System and Fermi America teamed up to create the world’s largest advanced energy and intelligence campus in Amarillo, east of Pantex. This campus would support the rise of AI, viable energy and data innovation.

Co-founder of Fermi America, former Texas governor Rick Perry, explained why Amarillo was chosen out of all their options.

“So, you have to have this located somewhere where you can have access to preferably all of the above, but importantly fossil fuels, in this case, natural gas, and nuclear power,” Perry said.

TTU System Chancellor Dr. Tedd Mitchell explained about six months ago, Fermi America approached TTU System about using the 6,000 acres of land they owned by Pantex for this campus.

“So, the Department of Energy, the federal government, had gone around and located 16 sites. They said, ‘This would be perfect for our next generation of data centers,’ we were one of those sites,” Dr. Mitchell said. “And so, Fermi came to us and said, ‘We would love to work with you guys on developing this into a large data center that can be used for what are called hyperscalers, these big companies that need massive data. In addition to that, these companies are also talking about the potential for AI.'”

According to Dr. Mitchell, for the campus to support the growth of AI, it would need nuclear energy to eventually produce 11 gigawatts of energy.

“Now, to put that in perspective, DFW runs off of about 1 gigawatt of energy. So, you’re talking massive amounts of energy that you can utilize for these large data centers,” Dr. Mitchell said.

Perry also mentioned that other countries were trying to get ahead of the pack in the field of artificial intelligence, which was why it was so important to get on this advanced energy and intelligence campus project.

“We’re in that race today with China, with the Communist Chinese Party as they are building 22 nuclear plants in China to drive their data center effort to be the first to dominate the world with artificial intelligence. This is the race we’re in,” Perry said.

The collaboration between TTU System and Fermi America not only was making a nationwide impact, but also an impact on Texas Tech students.

“We can do things that are great from an educational perspective, from a research perspective, and from a workforce development perspective,” Dr. Mitchell said.

According to Dr. Mitchell, this campus should be completely finished by 2040.