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I-35 South Data Center Corridor

The I-35 South corridor between Austin and San Antonio — through San Marcos, New Braunfels, Uhland, Maxwell, and the unincorporated stretches of Hays, Guadalupe, and Caldwell Counties — is assembling a multi-gigawatt data center concentration across more than 4,200 acres, with combined disclosed investment above $26 billion and planned capacity above 5 GW. It is the Austin Supercluster's southward extension, and the youngest of its data center supernodes: as of September 2026, zero megawatts are operational. CloudBurst's first 50 MW phase, targeting Q4 2026, would be the corridor's first live power.

The four campuses

CloudBurst Evolve — San Marcos Data Center I is the first mover, and the only one under construction. CloudBurst (Denver) and Evolve Holdings broke ground November 2025 on a 1.2 GW campus near the Hays–Guadalupe line, powered entirely behind the meter by Energy Transfer's Oasis pipeline — enough gas for over 1.8 GW of on-site generation, which is why it can target Q4 2026 for first power while grid-connected neighbors wait until 2028. Total project value $14.5 billion.

Tract Caldwell Valley is the largest footprint — roughly 3,000 acres near Uhland, master-planned for up to 4 GW, about four times the entire Cedar Creek cluster. Tract is a powered-land developer, not an operator: it zones, powers, and entitles the site, then leases pads. Its first 250 MW is contracted for Q1 2028 via a Bluebonnet/LCRA substation scaling to 1.6 GW. Nationally, Tract has raised $1.7 billion and controls 25,000+ acres across 10-plus markets for 25+ GW of planned capacity; Caldwell Valley is among its largest single sites.

Edged Energy (part of Endeavour, founded by Aligned co-founder Jakob Carnemark) is developing a $7.3 billion, 330-acre campus near Maxwell, adjacent to the LCRA Timmerman 380 MW gas peaker that came online in 2024. Its Phase 1 building (869,685 sq ft) runs June 2026 to June 2028. The differentiator is waterless cooling: sister company ThermalWorks provides closed-loop, no-evaporation cooling supporting 120 kW/rack on air and 400 kW on liquid — a permitting advantage in a corridor where water is the binding fight.

Prime Data Centers — Project Snow is a 206-acre developer-built campus at FM 2720 and Bobwhite Road, about 5 miles from Tract. Prime builds the buildings; tenants fit out their own equipment. Phase 1 is $1.3 billion for three buildings; full buildout is nine buildings across three phases at $4.2 billion. Caldwell County approved the tax abatement and a TIRZ in March 2024. Tenant undisclosed.

Developer	County	Acreage	Planned capacity	Investment	First power
CloudBurst / Evolve	Hays / Guadalupe	Master-planned (96-ac core)	1.2 GW	$14.5B	Q4 2026 (50 MW)
Tract Caldwell Valley	Caldwell	~3,000	4+ GW	Not fully disclosed	Q1 2028 (250 MW)
Edged Energy	Caldwell	330	Not disclosed	$7.3B	Jun 2028 (Phase 1)
Prime (Project Snow)	Caldwell	206	Not disclosed	$4.2B	Not disclosed
Corridor total	3 counties	4,200+	5+ GW disclosed	$26B+ disclosed	Q4 2026

The three Caldwell County campuses — Tract, Edged, and Prime — cluster within a six-mile radius of the FM 2720 / SH 142 intersection, creating a concentration of hyperscale development in an unincorporated area that had no data center presence before 2024.

Why this corridor

A supernode forms where the binding constraints for an industry relax at once. Along I-35 South, four of the five do.

Power — multiple pathways, not one. The LCRA Timmerman peaker anchors the grid; Energy Transfer's Oasis pipeline feeds behind-the-meter gas at CloudBurst's 1.8 GW scale; Bluebonnet provides interconnection for Tract's phased substation. Developers here have options single-source sites lack.
Land — former agricultural parcels in the hundreds to thousands of acres, at rural pricing. Tract alone controls ~3,000 acres; corridor-wide, developer-held land exceeds 4,200.
Permitting — unincorporated Caldwell County handles the three largest campuses through commissioner approvals, with no municipal zoning overlay. The contrast is sharp: San Marcos city limits denied a separate project in February 2026, while the county-jurisdiction sites proceed.
Fiber — long-haul routes run the I-35 corridor between the Austin and San Antonio interconnection points, two of the five largest Texas metros.

The fifth constraint is not solved. Water is the corridor's structural limit: the Hill Country table and the Edwards Aquifer region face recurrent drought and use restrictions, and community opposition to data center water consumption drove the San Marcos denial. Edged's waterless cooling is one answer, behind-the-meter gas with dry cooling another — but evaporative cooling at gigawatt scale remains a genuine constraint that permitting velocity cannot bypass. Water is the fight this corridor has not won.

Corridor position

The I-35 South corridor holds more planned capacity, more acreage, and more developers than the Cedar Creek cluster — but Cedar Creek has a building nearing completion while I-35 South's first megawatt is still targeting Q4 2026. The two are complementary, not competitive: Cedar Creek runs the SH 21 vector southeast of Austin, I-35 South runs the I-35 vector to the south, each drawing on different grid infrastructure, gas pipelines, and county jurisdictions. Both are supernodes of the Austin Supercluster — the eastern and southern data center extensions of a buildout whose manufacturing and semiconductor core sits 30 miles northwest at Giga Texas and Samsung Taylor.

Last updated September 11, 2026. Zero MW operational as of September 2026; capacities and investment are developer-stated buildout figures, several not fully disclosed. CloudBurst and Tract have full profiles; Edged and Prime are rostered pending their own pages.

Campuses: CloudBurst Evolve · Tract Caldwell Valley · Edged Energy · Prime (Project Snow)