New Era Energy & Digital and Thunderhead Energy Solutions Announce Strategic 250 MW Power Agreement to Support Hyperscale AI Data Center Development in Texas
New Era Energy & Digital, Inc.(“NEED” or the “Company”), formerly known as New Era Helium, Inc., today announced a significant step forward in its transformation into a leading player at the intersection of energy and digital infrastructure. The Company revealed that Texas Critical Data Centers LLC (“TCDC”), its 50/50 joint venture with Sharon AI, has signed a non-binding term sheet with Thunderhead Energy Solutions LLC (“Thunderhead”) to deliver a large-scale, behind-the-meter 250 megawatt (MW) power island. This dedicated energy solution will support TCDC’s planned hyperscale artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus in Ector County, Texas.
Project Overview: Energy-Backed AI Infrastructure
Under the terms of the agreement, Thunderhead will take responsibility for financing, constructing, and operating approximately 250 MW of gas-fired generation capacity. The deployment will use a hybrid mix of reciprocating engines and gas turbines, designed to balance flexibility, reliability, and efficiency. Construction is expected to begin later this year, with project completion anticipated within an 18-month window.
This new energy island will be fully integrated into the design of TCDC’s campus, providing a resilient and cost-effective source of power. The project reflects a growing trend in the AI data center industry: developing behind-the-meter power generation to ensure reliable, scalable, and locally controlled energy supply. By colocating power generation and compute capacity, TCDC aims to reduce grid interconnection risks while delivering robust performance to clients in need of uninterrupted high-density computing.
CEO Perspectives: Driving AI-Resilient Growth
E. Will Gray II, Chief Executive Officer of New Era Energy & Digital, emphasized the importance of this partnership in enabling TCDC’s broader vision.
“The agreement with Thunderhead is one more major milestone in our buildout and reinforces our vision of delivering energy-resilient, AI-native infrastructure. It also ensures TCDC will provide robust, SB6-compliant power to support the next wave of AI growth in West Texas.”
Gray’s comments highlight two key elements. First, the focus on “AI-native infrastructure” suggests a design philosophy centered on the specific requirements of advanced AI workloads, such as GPU-intensive clusters, low-latency interconnections, and high energy availability. Second, his reference to “SB6 compliance” points to adherence with Texas Senate Bill 6, legislation introduced to strengthen the reliability of the state’s power grid after the challenges of Winter Storm Uri in 2021. Ensuring compliance with evolving regulatory and reliability standards strengthens the project’s long-term viability.
Wolf Schubert, Chief Executive Officer of Sharon AI, echoed this sentiment by emphasizing the strategic outsourcing of power generation to a trusted partner:
“We are pleased to announce the agreement with Thunderhead for a fully outsourced power island at the site, which continues to build on the multilateral power strategy being deployed to power the TCDC campus.”
This approach allows TCDC to focus on developing and managing the compute infrastructure itself while relying on an experienced energy partner to deliver and operate the power assets. It also reflects an industry-wide shift toward modular energy strategies that combine grid interconnection, behind-the-meter assets, and renewable integration.
Thunderhead’s Role: Leveraging Natural Gas for Digital Growth
Brennan Zaunbrecher, Founder and Principal of Thunderhead Energy Solutions, highlighted the importance of Texas’s energy resources in powering the future of digital infrastructure.
“We are excited to partner with Texas Critical Data Centers on this groundbreaking 250 MW AI data center project in the Permian Basin. This partnership allows us to leverage the region’s abundant natural gas resources to deliver reliable, scalable energy solutions supporting growing digital infrastructure demand through a world-class asset. We look forward to working closely with TCDC and the customer to bring this innovative project to fruition, and to establishing a new standard for AI infrastructure development optimized from resource to compute.”
The Permian Basin, historically known as one of the world’s most prolific oil and gas regions, is becoming increasingly significant in the context of digital transformation. The use of abundant natural gas to support power-hungry AI campuses represents a convergence of traditional energy and cutting-edge digital infrastructure. This integration not only monetizes local resources but also supports the U.S.’s leadership in AI development.
Context: The Rising Energy Demands of AI
The partnership between TCDC and Thunderhead arrives amid a broader industry trend: the exponential increase in energy demand driven by artificial intelligence. Hyperscale AI workloads, powered by tens of thousands of GPUs and accelerators, require unprecedented levels of power density, cooling, and reliability. Some estimates suggest that AI training and inference could increase U.S. data center energy consumption by more than 25% within the next decade.
In response, operators are increasingly turning to dedicated power generation solutions rather than relying solely on existing grid capacity. Behind-the-meter natural gas generation, such as the system being developed by Thunderhead, provides predictable and scalable energy supply. It also reduces exposure to wholesale power price volatility and grid congestion issues that are particularly pronounced in high-growth markets like Texas.
TCDC’s Strategic Roadmap
The Thunderhead agreement represents one piece of TCDC’s multilateral power strategy. In addition to natural gas-fired assets, the company is exploring a range of complementary energy solutions, potentially including grid interconnections, renewable energy procurement, and battery storage integration. This diversified approach ensures that TCDC can meet client needs across different performance and sustainability dimensions.
The planned hyperscale campus in Ector County is designed as a high-performance, AI-optimized compute environment. With access to 250 MW of dedicated power, the site could support one of the largest GPU deployments in the United States. The facility is targeting clients that include hyperscalers, enterprise AI developers, and research institutions. By situating the campus in West Texas, TCDC benefits from proximity to energy resources while leveraging the state’s established data center-friendly regulatory environment.
Industry Implications: Setting a New Standard
The collaboration between NEED, Sharon AI, and Thunderhead may set a new benchmark for how energy and digital infrastructure companies align to deliver AI-ready campuses. By combining energy expertise with digital infrastructure design, the partners aim to shorten development timelines, reduce operational risks, and ensure the delivery of scalable, reliable, and compliant AI infrastructure.
