Taylor City Council unanimously approved a more than USD 2.5 billion data center development during a Thursday evening meeting, despite community opposition. The 220-acre project from Dallas-based developer KDC will be located northeast of Samsung Electronics' chip factory.

Project Details and Location

The data center site sits directly next to Samsung's massive, roughly 1,200-acre semiconductor manufacturing campus. Samsung's facility is still under construction, but it has begun limited operations and is expected to produce its first chips this year.

KDC plans to build at least six large industrial buildings on the data center campus, according to city documents. The project also includes electrical infrastructure, detention ponds, a dedicated right of way, and commercial spaces.

The Taylor City Council unanimously voted to annex part of the proposed development and rezone it to support the project. The developers requested a zoning change to employment-center zoning, which allows for flexible designs to support major industrial employment uses. Taylor, like most Texas cities, does not have a specific zoning category for data centers.

Economic Impact and Employment

The project is expected to bring Taylor more than USD 145.9 million in revenue through taxes and utilities, and more than USD 70.7 million to Taylor's school district over the next 10 years, according to city documents. The data center campus would support about 3,000 construction jobs over three and a half years and more than 360 jobs once operational.

Those 360 jobs include 175 direct positions and 186 "spin-off" or indirect jobs, with an average salary of USD 54,146. "At the end of the day, this isn't about data centers," said Rachael Westerman, membership and operations director at the Taylor Chamber of Commerce, at the meeting. "It's about what allows us to build together a stronger economy and a more vibrant business community and brighter futures for our families."

Water Usage and Environmental Considerations

The proposed KDC site will use a closed-loop water cooling system that relies on a one-time fill of water, which is recycled to cool its servers. The site is capped at a one-time fill of 5 million gallons of water per building, or about 30 million gallons total. KDC would need the city manager's approval if it needed to refill the water. An average American household uses more than 300 gallons of water per day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, meaning about 16,600 homes would use a comparable amount of water in one day.

Community Response and Regional Context

Area residents filled the chamber during public comment Thursday evening, with the majority expressing concerns over rising utility bills and a lack of transparency. "(It's) just not enough," Taylor resident Carrie D'Anna said. "We're not being heard. We're being heard in the way that you hear a child, and you want to convince them it's gonna be okay."

Company officials did not disclose the campus's tenants, but said in previous meetings that it is a "large brand name." Since Samsung announced plans for its chip factory in 2021, development has accelerated along Farm-to-Market Road 973. The road, which is slated to be expanded into a six-lane thoroughfare into Taylor, is currently home to Taylor High School and several new neighborhoods. Hotels, restaurants, and retail stores are planned for the area, and the University of Texas at Austin also selected the corridor for its new 68-acre Taylor site.

This data center joins the more than 70 in Central Texas that the American-Statesman has tracked using company announcements, city and county filings, and documents from utility providers. Data centers are considered critical infrastructure supporting today's digital economy and the rapid growth of artificial intelligence.

These vast facilities are filled with servers and must run 24/7, creating both economic opportunities and concerns about water and power use. While KDC's data center received strong support from local officials, several cities have been swayed by local opposition. Residents in San Marcos and College Station have successfully convinced their city councils to deny proposed data center projects in the past six months. Several counties have also considered moratoriums on data center development. In most cases, data centers directly employ relatively few workers once operational.

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