New Era Energy & Digital CEO Will Gray joined Steve Darling from Proactive to announce the successful completion of Phase One engineering for Texas Critical Data Centers LLC, the company’s flagship data center and power development project located in the heart of the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. TCDC is structured as a 50/50 joint venture between New Era and Sharon AI, Inc., combining expertise in energy infrastructure and artificial intelligence. Phase One engineering included a comprehensive series of environmental studies — all of which successfully passed review — along with detailed feasibility assessments for data center development and load studies to evaluate long-term energy requirements. Gray confirmed that the next step will be filing a large load interconnection application, a key milestone that will set the foundation for securing reliable energy delivery to the site. Based on the current project timeline, New Era anticipates that initial power delivery could begin as early as 2027. The TCDC campus is being designed to ultimately scale to 1 gigawatt of power capacity, positioning it as one of the largest AI-optimized data center complexes in North America. This ambitious design underscores the growing demand for next-generation data infrastructure capable of supporting artificial intelligence workloads, cloud computing, and high-performance computing applications. The project is further strengthened by previously announced partnerships that will establish behind-the-meter power islands, ensuring reliable energy delivery while maintaining compliance with Texas Senate Bill 6. This legislation, which directly affects large energy consumers like data centers on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid, requires new operational models for balancing grid reliability with rising power demands. Gray emphasized that completing Phase One engineering validates the constructability and scalability of the TCDC project, providing a clear pathway toward developing a premier energy and data hub that will meet the needs of both AI-driven industries and broader digital infrastructure markets. #proactiveinvestors #neweraheliuminc #nasdaq #nuai #oil #gas #perimianbasin #HeliumProduction #NaturalGas #DataCenters #AIInfrastructure #PecosSlope #VerticalIntegration #EnergyMarkets #PermianBasin #Semiconductors #PowerGeneration #ProactiveInvestors