This Month's Latest Tech News in Lubbock, TX - Sunday August 31st 2025 Edition

Weekly commentary: West Texas doubles down on AI + energy - an infrastructure vs. safety balancing act - The sprawling Fermi America + Texas Tech “HyperGrid” plans near Amarillo aim to deliver up to 11 GW and 18 million sq ft of AI capacity, with a target of 1 GW online by 2026 using gas, solar and wind as a bridge to long‑term nuclear power; Macquarie's recent investment and $250M senior facility underline heavy private backing, while local reporting shows geotechnical work, nuclear hires and workforce promises are already shaping the region's economy and infrastructure.

The scale is vivid: 1 GW is roughly the power used in all of San Francisco, which raises hard questions about water, grid access and permitting even as training pipelines are announced - a moment when practical skills matter, from reactor supply chains to AI operations (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work 15-week bootcamp can help reskill local talent).

Project	Details
HyperGrid AI campus (Fermi America & Texas Tech)	Near Amarillo, TX (~5,700–5,800 acres)
Scale	~18 million sq ft; target 11 GW IT capacity
Near‑term power	600+ MW gas acquisitions; 1 GW target by 2026
Long‑term plan	Four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors (nuclear)

“Macquarie's leadership in both our Series C and senior loan facility underscores their conviction that our speed of execution is based on our team's experience in real-time power generation and construction.” - Toby Neugebauer, Fermi America co‑founder & CEO.

1) TTU System and Fermi America announce world's largest advanced energy & AI campus (Amarillo) - The Texas Tech University System has teamed with Fermi America to develop the HyperGrid Advanced Energy & Intelligence Campus near Amarillo: roughly 5,769–5,800 acres, about 18 million sq ft of data center floor space and a claimed peak of up to 11 GW of IT capacity powered by a mix of natural gas, solar, wind, battery storage and planned on‑site nuclear.

Geotechnical work is already underway and Fermi says it has secured more than 600 MW of gas generation to help reach an initial 1 GW online target by the end of 2026; financing and strategic deals - most recently Macquarie's $100M Series C and a $250M senior facility - underscore the scale of private backing (reporting via Data Center Dynamics coverage of the HyperGrid campus and local coverage at Amarillo.com reporting on the Amarillo project offers more detail).

The campus promises research, training and internship pipelines with TTU System partners, even as the plan's nuclear ambitions (four Westinghouse AP1000 units) and water‑and‑grid impacts raise big permitting and infrastructure questions for the Panhandle.

Fact	Detail
Location	Near Amarillo, TX (~5,769–5,800 acres)
Campus size	~18 million sq ft of data centers
Target IT capacity	Up to 11 GW (1 GW targeted by end of 2026)
Energy mix	Natural gas, solar, wind, battery storage, planned nuclear
Partners & financing	Texas Tech University System; Macquarie investment and loan

“No one does energy better than Texas, and Fermi America and the Texas Tech University System are answering the call.” - Rick Perry, Fermi America co‑founder

2) Fermi America / Amarillo HyperGrid secures large on‑site power (600 MW now; 1 GW target by 2026) - Fermi has locked in more than 600 MW of natural‑gas generation across two equipment deals to jump‑start the Amarillo HyperGrid, a 5,700‑plus acre AI campus being developed with the Texas Tech University System; the first package - six Siemens SGT‑800 turbines, six heat recovery steam generators and an SST‑600 steam turbine - is ISO‑rated at 478 MW (estimated just over 400 MW at the site's elevation), while a second refurbished package of three GE Frame 6B units and a paired steam turbine should add roughly 135–180 MW after HRSG installation, helping the company hit its behind‑the‑meter goal of 1 GW of on‑site generation by end‑2026.

The approach prioritizes speed and supply‑chain resilience - equipment available for shipment and refurbishment avoids multi‑year OEM lead times - but it also raises local questions about water, environmental oversight, jobs, and permitting for a site adjacent to Pantex; read the original coverage at Amarillo.com coverage of the Amarillo HyperGrid project and Data Center Dynamics analysis of Fermi America's power procurement for full technical and timeline detail.

Item	Detail
Location	~5,769–5,800 acres near Amarillo (Carson County)
Initial equipment	6× Siemens SGT‑800 + 6 HRSGs + 1 SST‑600; 3× GE 6B + steam turbine
ISO-rated / site estimate	478 MW ISO (≈400+ MW at elevation); secondary unit ~135–180 MW
Near‑term target	1 GW on‑site power by end of 2026

“The executed agreements will allow Fermi America to acquire highly reliable, energy‑efficient, and environmentally advanced power generation systems to support the artificial intelligence campus.” - Larry Kellerman, Fermi America chief power procurement officer (Data Center Dynamics)

Sources: Amarillo.com full coverage of the Amarillo HyperGrid; Data Center Dynamics report on Fermi America power agreements.

3) Nuclear plans gain traction - Fermi taps nuclear leaders and files with NRC - Fermi America has moved from concept to regulatory action, teaming with Westinghouse to finalize the Combined Operating License Application (COLA) to deploy four AP1000 reactors at the Amarillo HyperGrid, a step covered in detail by Data Center Dynamics (Data Center Dynamics report on Fermi-Westinghouse licensing for Amarillo AI campus).

The AP1000 is a proven Generation III+ design with passive safety systems and roughly 1,100 MWe of net electrical output per unit, and Westinghouse's recent industry news - including the NRC's extension of AP1000 design certification - eases the path for long‑lead permitting and design referencing (Westinghouse AP1000 design certification extension press release).

The NRC's public docket also records that Fermi's COL materials were received in part on June 17, 2025, meaning technical reviews and public comment windows are now the near‑term milestones; for a region already planning gigawatts of AI capacity, the visible shift from gas bridges to licensed nuclear designs is a concrete inflection point worth watching closely.

Fact	Detail
COLA status	Submitted (received in part) - June 17, 2025 (NRC docket)
Proposed reactors	4 × Westinghouse AP1000 units
AP1000 certification	Design certification extended to February 2046

“As the only fully licensed, construction-ready advanced modular reactor available today, the AP1000 technology is ready to deliver the power needed to unlock the full potential of next‑generation artificial intelligence.” - Dan Lipman, President, Westinghouse Energy Systems

4) Dickens County Helios crypto facility converting to AI/HPC (CoreWeave lease) - Galaxy Digital is repurposing its Helios bitcoin‑mining campus in West Texas into a major AI and HPC campus under a long‑term hosting deal with CoreWeave, closing a $1.4 billion project financing to retrofit and expand the site and committing $350 million of equity to the effort; the partnership now covers 800 MW of committed IT load with phased power deliveries beginning in early 2026, and Helios can scale toward a multi‑gigawatt buildout, all part of Galaxy's pivot from mining to predictable infrastructure revenue.

The technical lift is notable - CoreWeave plans high‑density deployments using liquid cooling (which can cut energy use substantially), underscoring why retrofitting former crypto facilities is becoming a fast route to AI capacity while raising familiar questions about grid, water, and permitting for rural Texas communities.

Fact	Detail
Project financing	$1.4 billion debt facility (Galaxy) + $350M equity
Committed IT load	800 MW to CoreWeave (phased)
First power delivery	Beginning in early 2026
Lease term	15 years (CoreWeave hosting)
Full buildout potential	Up to ~3.5 GW (Helios)

“We're on track and excited to deliver the first phase of power to CoreWeave beginning in early 2026.” - Mike Novogratz, Founder and CEO, Galaxy Digital

5) TTU-led youth AI events and workforce preparation (Amy Love & TTU symposiums) - Texas Tech is building a clear bridge from curiosity to career with hands-on teen workshops, faculty training and campus symposia that stress practical AI skills and communication: the NextGen AI Lab Summer Workshop invites teens aged 12–17 to two 3‑hour morning sessions (Aug 4–5, 2025) to learn how large language models work and how to use AI responsibly (NextGen AI Lab Summer Workshop registration and details), TTU's TrUE program will showcase undergraduate Impact Talks at the 4th Annual Symposium on Oct 17 to sharpen students' ability to explain research in three minutes (TrUE 4th Annual Symposium program and Impact Talks), and campus professional development offers recorded sessions on “Teaching in an AI World” to help instructors adapt pedagogy and assessment (TLPDC Teaching in an AI World recorded sessions for faculty development).

Together these programs stitch classroom-ready AI literacy into a workforce pipeline - imagine a local teen who spent two mornings building prompts and leaving able to pitch a 3‑minute project that employers actually understand.

Event	Date	Key detail
NextGen AI Lab Summer Workshop	Aug 4–5, 2025	Teens 12–17; two 3‑hour morning sessions on LLMs and responsible use
TrUE 4th Annual Symposium	Oct 17, 2025	Undergraduate Impact Talks (3‑minute presentations)
TLPDC: Teaching in an AI World	Recorded sessions available	Faculty workshops on AI pedagogy and assessment

6) TTU panels and expert discussions on preparing youth for AI - Texas Tech is stacking practical panels, workshops, and faculty briefings to move classroom curiosity into workforce readiness: the TLPDC's TLPDC AI Teaching Resources for Faculty (syllabus language, integrity, and data protection) offer concrete guidance on syllabus statements, academic integrity, data protection, and ethical use of generative models; campus libraries and lunchtime series are rolling out bite-sized AI literacy sessions for students and staff; and an engineering college pilot called TRACE flips the script - students tutor a GPT-4 “virtual student” to deepen problem solving and diagnosis ahead of a fall 2025 classroom trial of roughly 135 students (see the TRACE AI learning pilot summary at Texas Tech and the AI Literacy at Lunchtime workshop guide for event specifics).

The result: layered, evidence-informed discussions that pair hands-on practice with clear policy guardrails so teens learn skills employers can actually use - not just flashy demos.

Resource / Panel	Key detail
TLPDC AI Teaching Resources	Syllabus language, integrity policy, data protection guidance for faculty
TRACE (TRACE AI project)	GPT‑4 “virtual student”; pilot in Fall 2025 with ~135 students
AI Literacy at Lunchtime	Workshop series (Fall 2025) - short sessions on evaluation, detection, and practical use

“Our goal is to be able to scale up the learning-by-teaching strategy to larger classes by having the students tutor the AI instead of the other ...”

7) Visa and AI developers enable agentic payments - a national trend with local implications - Visa's new Intelligent Commerce effort is building the plumbing so AI agents can browse, select and pay on behalf of users with tokenization, authentication and transaction controls that aim to reduce fraud and give consumers control over what a designated agent can purchase (Visa Intelligent Commerce platform and agentic payments overview).

At the same time, federal moves to pre‑approve major AI vendors for agency use (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic) and the headline‑grabbing "$1" deals for government access signal rapid normalization of powerful AI services across public and private sectors (TechCrunch report on GSA approvals of AI vendors; Business Insider coverage of the $1 government AI access deals).

For Lubbock, that combination matters: merchants, campus innovators and service providers will face choices about integrating agentic payments, safeguarding privacy, and updating dispute and fraud workflows - imagine a verified AI shopping agent that can book travel for a conference, pick seats, and pay within preset spending rules, turning a complex purchase into a single trusted transaction.

These are design and policy questions as much as technical ones, and Visa's partner programs and Agent APIs are positioning the payments layer to be part of the conversation.

“As we enter the era of AI commerce, it's pivotal to have brands and products innovating in this space that users already know, trust and are comfortable with. We're excited to partner with Visa in this next wave of the internet.” - Dmitry Shevelenko, Chief Business Officer, Perplexity

8) Lubbock/Texas Tech campus safety incident - manhole explosions, gas leaks and infrastructure lessons - On the evening of March 12, a cascade of underground failures produced dramatic green flames and smoke issuing from multiple manholes, prompting evacuations, a campus shutdown and widespread outages as crews ventilated vaults and checked for lingering gas (early coverage captured the visuals and timeline; see the Texas Tribune report).

The State Fire Marshal's office later concluded the events were accidental: an underground electrical line submerged in water sparked faults that led to a “smoke explosion” and a complete electrical failure in affected vaults - a finding summarized in KCBD's reporting and the university's situation updates.

Investigators even used social video to piece together the sequence of events, while Lubbock Power & Light says it is reviewing the report and its own practices after quickly repairing equipment and bringing circuits back online.

The episode is a clear reminder that buried infrastructure needs robust water intrusion protection, ventilation and coordinated emergency procedures before the next high‑impact outage occurs; campus safety hinged on fast detection, interagency response, and careful gas testing before full restoration.

Fact	Detail
Date	March 12–14, 2025
Cause	Underground electrical line submerged in water → faults / “smoke explosion” (ruled accidental)
Immediate impact	Manhole fires (green flames), evacuations, campus closure
Power restoration	~60% restored by Thursday; remaining ~40% kept off pending safety checks
Sources	Texas Tribune report on the Texas Tech manhole explosions and campus closure (March 12, 2025), KCBD coverage of the State Fire Marshal ruling and investigation findings, Texas Tech Now official campus update on the outage and restoration efforts

“Lubbock Power & Light (LP&L) has received the report from the State Fire Marshall's office and is in the process of reviewing their analysis of the event. While LP&L disagrees with certain key aspects of their findings, we are in the process of reviewing our findings and practices to better understand the true cause of the event that took place on the Tech campus. After the fire, LP&L was able to quickly repair and replace damaged equipment and bring all affected areas of campus back online. At this time the electrical system serving Texas Tech is safely functioning as intended.” - LP&L statement (KCBD)

9) AI in Texas education accelerates - districts move from bans to pilots - The Texas Education Agency's shift to an automated scoring engine has put generative‑AI‑style tools squarely into classroom accountability: roughly 75% of STAAR essays are now first scored by machines, the system was trained on about 3,000 human‑graded responses, and TEA says the change will save roughly $15–20 million a year (Texas AFT report on computer scoring of STAAR essays; Texas Tribune explainer on STAAR AI grading).

The rollout - after limited pilot testing - has provoked district pushback, targeted rescoring requests (Dallas ISD found about 43% of a 4,632‑test sample improved after human review) and broader calls for transparent pilots and validation rather than wholesale replacement of human graders (Dallas Morning News report on Dallas ISD rescoring results).

Educators worry about bias, lost grader jobs, and instructional drift - one stark signal: in one administration roughly eight in ten English II written responses received zero points - so the debate has shifted from theoretical risks to concrete pilot designs, rescoring workflows, and questions about how savings are reinvested in classrooms.

Fact	Detail
Automated scoring coverage	~75% of STAAR essays
Training data	~3,000 human‑graded responses
Estimated savings	$15–20 million per year
Human rescoring	~25% randomly rescored / low‑confidence flagged
District rescoring result	Dallas ISD: ~43% of 4,632 submitted responses improved on rescoring

“they haven't released any verifiable metrics, any kind of facts or information on the type of AI they're using, the models or statistics that they claim to be training on. This lack of transparency is a major red flag.” - Caleb Stevens (AI Think Tank / DataScienceCentral)

10) Policy and politics shaping regional AI/energy growth - Rep. Jodey Arrington & Sen. John Cornyn - Federal moves are rewriting the playbook for how West Texas can host massive AI campuses: the White House's July AI Action Plan and a suite of executive orders aim to speed permitting and funnel federal support to “qualifying” data center projects, while private developers increasingly plan on‑site gas power to guarantee reliability (one proposed plant size was described as big enough to power a major city, ~1,200 MW).

Those twin pressures - expedited federal permitting and the economics of dispatchable natural gas - sharpen the tradeoffs local leaders must weigh on permitting, water, and emissions, and they set the context in which regional representatives such as Rep.

Jodey Arrington and Sen. John Cornyn (and their constituents) will evaluate permits, pipeline siting, and community impacts. At the same time, environmental groups and legal advisors warn of growing opposition and litigation risks if fast tracks sidestep standard review; the practical question for Lubbock is not just “can we build fast?” but “can we build fast without sidelining community voice and regulatory safeguards?”

Policy or trend	Why it matters
White House AI Action Plan (July 23, 2025) – Federal permitting reform for data centers	Directs permitting reforms, federal financial support for qualifying data center projects and expedited NEPA/agency processes.
Texas data center on‑site gas generation trend – securing dispatchable power	Developers are building large gas plants co‑located with data centers to secure reliable, dispatchable power.
Permitting opposition & litigation risks – advocacy-driven scrutiny	Advocacy groups and EIP reports are driving legal and permitting scrutiny that can delay or reshape projects.

“America's environmental permitting system and other regulations make it almost impossible to build this infrastructure in the United States with the speed that is required.”

Conclusion: What Lubbock should watch next - workforce, power, permitting and safety milestones - Local leaders and employers need to track four linked agendas: building pipeline-ready talent, securing reliable dispatchable power, navigating faster but scrutinized permitting, and proving infrastructure safety.

Workforce efforts must scale beyond classroom curiosity into certifiable skills - pairing Texas Tech's hands-on outreach with reskilling options like Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work 15‑week bootcamp so residents can convert promise into paychecks.

On permitting and licensing, the NRC's License Renewal Roadmap (which targets predictable, 18‑month renewal reviews and phased process improvements) and industry commentary about faster reviews mean approvals may move quicker - see the NRC roadmap for details and industry analysis at the NRC License Renewal Roadmap and the NEI's assessment.

Practically, watch milestone dates (on‑site 1 GW targets and DOE pilot timing), insist on rigorous environmental and safety checks, and treat workforce training and emergency‑ready infrastructure as non‑negotiable prerequisites for sustainable growth.

Watch area	Near‑term milestone / detail
Workforce	Scale training & reskilling (TTU youth programs; bootcamps like Nucamp AI Essentials)
Power	Developer near‑term targets (e.g., 1 GW on‑site by 2026; CoreWeave/Helios 800 MW commitments)
Permitting	NRC roadmap: goal of timely 18‑month license renewal reviews and process improvements
Safety & testing	DOE/NRC actions to accelerate reactor testing and microreactor pilots (2026 targets for demonstrations)

“Seeking DOE authorisation provided under the Atomic Energy Act will help unlock private funding and provide a fast‑tracked approach to enable future commercial licensing activities for potential applicants.”