Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Sunday, February 22nd.

Today on Forbes, this daring developer wants to power America's AI future.

Nate Franklin, CEO of Pacifico Energy, has a grand plan to build the nation's largest electric

power generating complex on 84 acres of flat West Texas scrub desert in desolate, sparsely populated, Pacas County.

There's only about 14,000 people spread over 4,800 square miles there.

Franklin has got an option on the land and has already received air emission permits

from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, giving Pacifico the green light to erect dozens

of natural gas turbines, generating 7.5 gigawatts of power. The complex he envisions will also

include solar panels, producing 750 megawatts of power,

plus batteries with a storage capacity of 1.8 gigawatt hours, and will put out sufficient juice

to power 5 million Texas homes, or enough for all of New York City on most days.

What Franklin doesn't have yet is the $12 billion he estimates it will take

to build the power complex, or a commitment from the hyperscalers, the big cloud service providers

like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, to build AI data centers to consume all that energy.

Those commitments are needed to shake loose the capital

to build his dream. Franklin, who is confident he'll get those commitments, says, quote,

the demand for this intelligence will justify all the power projects underway now.

The project, which Franklin has christened G.W. Ranch, might not be as far-fetched as it sounds,

considering that the hypers are expected to spend $650 billion in 2026 alone,

and that Elon Musk and others are talking about putting AI data centers in space to run on solar power.

Moreover, at a time when some local communities are rejecting data centers in space to run on solar power. Moreover, at a time when some local communities are rejecting data centers, in part because

of their energy consumption, Franklin intends to keep costs and opposition, low by staying

...