A planned data center in Westlake is raising concerns for homeowners just across the city line in Keller. Residents have been fighting the proposed development, which would be built on an open field next to their homes. Now, the city of Keller says it has secured protections for its residents. NBC 5’s Vince Sims explains what the city has accomplished and what it could mean for the neighboring homeowners.
In Bryan, a 73-megawatt data center is being developed on 25 acres of Texas A&M’s RELLIS Campus. Austin-based ThisWay Global is building what it calls the Research and AI Compute Center, or RACC, with a focus on sovereign <a ThisWay Global CEO Stefan Fable said.
The center is also expected to have an educational component, including an eight-week course available to eligible students and community members.
“You have full control and you retain control both over the input as well as the output,” Fable said. “That is extraordinarily important for research. It is extraordinarily important for regulated industry, for defense, for our mission that we are behind.”
Fable said the goal is to provide training “across the entire spectrum of the professional, vocational and academic spectrum,” extending opportunities beyond Texas A&M students to the broader community.
For students and researchers, access to computing power can be a significant hurdle.
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“Usually if we want access to larger compute systems we have to partner with industry or whatnot,” Texas A&M computer science Ph.D. student Sean Feeney said. “And so I think having that closer to campus and more accessible alongside some of the other computing ree research and the compute local.”
Arnold Castro, a professor of practice who teaches AI at Texas A&M, believes the center could give students and researchers another reason to remain on campus rather than leave in search of greater re
“It’s going to allow our research to go to new levels,” Castro said. He added that RACC could also provide a place for students to learn how to operate an AI data center as the facilities become more common.
The company plans to begin computing at the Bryan facility by June 2027.
Dallas AI factory gives businesses a place to test technology
In Dallas, another facility is taking a different approach to expanding access to AI.
Dallas-based technology integrator GDT has created what it calls an “AI factory,” a supercomputer lab where businesses can develop and test <a We're now in the phase of where large enterprises are using AI to do work, and they have to deploy that," GDT CEO Shawn O'Grady said. "And that's a lot more complex than just searching ChatGPT on your iPhone."
The GDT lab uses NVIDIA GPUs, NetApp storage and Cisco networking. Companies can use the facility to determine whether an AI application works for their business before committing to the technology and infrastructure <a s vice president of advisory and transformation, said the idea is to help companies move more quickly from exploring AI to determining whether a particular use has real value.
“For organizations that come in and use our AI factory, what it is, is it’s really a way to accelerate that,” Kapusta said. “How can we test out their use cases? How can we test out what they want to do? Make sure it makes sense for their organization, for their business.”
Kapusta said having the facility in Dallas also gives North Texas businesses local access to the technology while potentially drawing national attention to the region.
“It allows a lot of Dallas local businesses to take advantage of what we’re building here,” Kapusta said. “We want to be a partner and help on this journey, but it also gives some national exposure because AI factories are kind of a hot topic right now.”
Questions remain as AI expands
The growth of AI and the infrastructure supporting it has not come without concerns, including questions about security and how the technology may be used.
O’Grady compared artificial intelligence to any other tool whose impact depends on the person using it.
“AI is not a bad thing in the way that a hammer is not bad. It’s a tool,” O’Grady said. “And it’s always in how the tool gets used. And you use a hammer to build a house; you can use a hammer to harm somebody. AI, the tool by itself, is not the problem.”
Cybersecurity is one area where the technology can work both ways.
Kapusta said bad actors are already using AI to search for security vulnerabilities and digitally infiltrate organizations. At the same time, he said companies can use artificial intelligence to find and address weaknesses before they become widespread.
“We can also use AI in a good way, so to speak, to combat those bad actors, to find and fix vulnerabilities before they become widespread,” Kapusta said.
For those concerned about where the technology is headed, Fable said AI will increasingly become integrated into systems people already use, including payment systems, points of sale and other everyday technology.
“AI will be part of everything that you’re already doing,” Fable said.
While the Dallas and Bryan projects serve different purposes, both are designed around a similar idea: giving more people access to the computing reence as its role in business, research and everyday life continues to grow
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.
