AI Infra/miners: Texas data center audit to drive more MW scarcity - Quick take

Research evidence excerpt

AI Infra/miners: Texas data center audit to drive more MW scarcity - Quick take

4 August 2026

Global Digital Assets

AI Infra/miners: Texas data center audit to drive more MW

scarcity - Quick take

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has directed the PUCT (Texas utility regulator) and ERCOT Gautam Chhugani

+91 226 842 1416 (Texas grid operator) to conduct a comprehensive audit of all data center projects under

gautam.chhugani@bernsteinsg.com ERCOT’s interconnection process. This comes after Governor’s June directive to ensure

data centers bear their own infrastructure costs, and protect residential and small business

Mahika Sapra ratepayers. Within our coverage and broadly miners, all contracts under execution are for

+91 226 842 1408

mahika.sapra@bernsteinsg.com approved capacity and are not impacted by the audit. Future pipelines for select ERCOT

exposed players will likely face delays from the additional audit (CIFR, CORZ). However,

Sanskar Chindalia we believe, this audit throttles speculative data center pipeline and makes genuine sites

+91 226 842 1445 with development history more valuable. Bitcoin mining sites are favorably placed with the

sanskar.chindalia@bernsteinsg.com

longest gestation, self-funding infra and local community management. We share a quick

take on our covered names -

Harsh Misra

+91 226 842 1457

harsh.misra@bernsteinsg.com Texas has so far been positioned as data center friendly market. Currently, ERCOT’s

interconnect queue stands at 474 GW and data centers represent 90% of the new

requests. However, following Governor’s directive, ERCOT has paused the Batch Zero

review process, which was previously expected to announce classification results on Aug

7, 2026. ERCOT plans to request for some exceptions related to timeline and process for

Batch Zero study.