Google’s $40 Billion Expansion + Securing Third-Party Capacity

Google is adjusting its data center strategy, signaling a notable shift in its approach to scaling capacity. The company is expanding its footprint and increasingly leveraging third-party developers, including Skybox Datacenters, a Prologis owned company, and Rowan Digital Infrastructure to secure near-term capacity in Texas.

Google recently announced a $40 billion dollar investment program in Texas that includes three new data center campuses planned for Armstrong County and Haskell County. Among the three largest cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft, and Google), Google has been the most conservative in its data center buildout over the last two years. With the Texas announcement, we reviewed state filings, permits, and recent activity across these regions.

We also revisited the Goodnight Campus in Armstrong County, a project we identified back in August that is being developed by Crusoe. The recent and drastic change in the planned building layouts suggests the campus may have originally been aligned with OpenAI and Oracle, but the updated configuration and Google’s new announcement in the same county indicate that the project’s direction may have shifted.

Haskell and Armstrong County - 3 New Campus

Haskell County contains two independent data center campuses tied to the same development entity, Homebound Group LLC, and separated by only 16.84 kilometers (10.47 miles). The southern site is located near 10068–10148 Loop Road in Lueders, while the northern site is positioned along Red Creek Road in Haskell. Despite their proximity, the two projects are progressing at very different stages.

The South Haskell County campus is the more advanced of the two and the clearest match to one of the projects referenced in Google’s Texas announcement. Aterio first identified this site on May 29, 2025 through a TDLR filing (TABS2025019833), which listed June 18, 2025 as the planned construction start date. Satellite imagery from August 15, 2025 shows that clearing and grading began around this time, indicating that ground activity initiated later than the date in the permit. Although only one building permit has been approved so far, the wastewater application submitted to TCEQ (WQ0016903001) outlines a five building layout for the site.

Source: TCEQ - Waste Water Filling

The first structure is planned at roughly 280,000 square feet, matching Google’s standardized rural hyperscale design used in other regions. If all five structures follow this typology, which the site plan suggest they will, the campus would reach an estimated 1.4 million square feet and approximately 440 megawatts at full buildout. Current imagery shows the main development footprint fully cleared, with active grading and early site preparation visible.

Figure: South Haskell County - Google Data Center Campus construction progress as of 16 Nov 2025. Captured via Sentinel-2 satellite, Sourced through Copernicus, Image analysis by Aterio.

The North Haskell County campus appears earlier in its lifecycle. It was identified through a separate wastewater permit filed under the same LLC (TCEQ WQ0016881001), which confirms utility planning for another data center site in the county, but no site plan made available yet. Also, no building permits have been submitted to TDLR, and satellite imagery as of November 16, 2025 shows no signs of grading, equipment mobilization, or construction related disturbance at the location. The absence of physical progress indicates that the project remains in a pre construction stage, likely 6 months to a year behind the southern site.

Figure: North Haskell County - Google Data Center Campus construction progress as of 16 Nov 2025. Captured via Sentinel-2 satellite, Sourced through Copernicus, Image analysis by Aterio.

Armstrong County project (Likely)

The Armstrong County component of Google’s Texas announcement aligns most closely with the Goodnight Campus, a large hyperscale development that Aterio first identified in August. The project is being developed by Crusoe and has undergone a notable redesign over the last several months. Early plans resembled the layout used for the Stargate Campus in Abilene, which had been linked to OpenAI and Oracle. In fact, Crusoe is well advanced in developing two Abilene-type structures on the site, while the remaining planned buildings have shifted toward a more rectangular warehouse-style configuration rather than the original.

The amended Armstrong County tax abatement agreement provides the clearest view of the updated development scope. It identifies two smaller Abilene-type hyperscale buildings, each measuring 484,954 square feet with an expected capacity of roughly 132.5 megawatts per structure. The agreement also includes four larger rectangular buildings of 805,380 square feet each, a format that could support roughly double the capacity of the smaller modules. This revised layout contrasts sharply with the earlier seven-building concept that circulated locally.

Source: Armstrong County Tax Abatement Agreement GNDC1

Construction permits are already approved for 4 buildings based on permits from TDLR, and the two Abilene-type structures are visibly progressing, with roof installation and steel framing underway across portions of both buildings. For the larger warehouse-type structures, land grading is well advanced and staging is in place across multiple parcels.

Figure: Goodnight Data Center Campus construction progress as of 17 Nov 2025. Captured via Sentinel-2 satellite, Sourced through Copernicus, Image analysis by Aterio.

Although recent local reporting suggested a scale back to three or four buildings, ongoing grading on an additional parcel indicates that the total program may reach at least five buildings when all phases are considered.

Securing Third-Party Capacity - 4 New Campus

Recent filings from the Texas Comptroller provide a clear indication that Google may be shifting part of its infrastructure strategy toward working more closely with third-party data center developers. In addition to the Skybox Datacenters portfolio, Comptroller records also list Google as the operator and occupant of the Cinco Data Center Campus, a 300-megawatt development by Rowan Digital Infrastructure. The scale of these third-party relationships suggests that Google is securing a substantial amount of new capacity through externally developed sites rather than relying solely on its traditional self-built model.

Across the three Skybox campuses in Pflugerville, Hutto, and Lancaster, Google is tied to eleven buildings totaling 4,367,040 square feet and approximately 780 megawatts. Pflugerville consists of two active buildings; Hutto is the largest of the group with six buildings across construction and announcement stages; and Lancaster adds three more buildings distributed across planning and early development phases.

The Rowan Cinco Campus introduces an additional 300 megawatts to the set of third-party delivered projects tied to Google in Texas. Cinco is planned as a seven-building development based on publicly released renderings, and satellite imagery from November 4, 2025 shows large-scale land grading and clearing already underway across the initial footprint. The tenant for the project has not been publicly confirmed, but Rowan has described it as a “Top 5 U.S. tech company,” and Comptroller records list Google as the operator.

When the Skybox and Rowan developments are viewed together, they represent a combined 1.08 gigawatts of third-party-delivered capacity now associated with Google across the state. Several buildings in this portfolio are active, others are under construction, and the remaining phases are in announcement or early site-preparation stages. This full set of buildings could be activated for Google between Q4 2027 and Q1 2028 at the latest.

Total Capacity Planned If Confirmed

When these third-party developments are combined with Google’s self-built activity in Haskell County, the scale of the Texas expansion becomes more apparent. The three Skybox campuses and the Rowan Cinco project account for roughly 1.08 gigawatts of externally delivered capacity. The South Haskell County campus adds another 440 megawatts, and if the North Haskell site follows the same five-building configuration, the combined Haskell footprint would exceed 800 megawatts. If the Armstrong County site ultimately corresponds to the Goodnight Campus, its revised layout could support an additional 920 megawatts. Taken together, these programs outline a pipeline approaching 2.8 gigawatts across Texas, a level of activity that materially exceeds Google’s recent build cycles and signals a clear shift in the company’s infrastructure strategy.