Data center firm Galaxy Digital is expanding its landholdings in Texas.

The Nasdaq-listed firm this week announced it has acquired approximately 500 acres in McGregor, McLennan County.

The company is aiming to buy a data center campus within the McGregor Industrial Park, initially offering 75MW of grid-connected capacity from 2028.

Galaxy acquired the land from the city of McGregor for $7.5 million. Galaxy said it believes the McGregor campus has the potential to grow into a multi-hundred-megawatt campus through 2030.

"We've spent the last several years proving in Dickens County that a privately funded data center can be a real, long-term partner to a rural community, adding to the tax base, funding local infrastructure, and creating jobs," said Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy. "McGregor is the next step in our strategy to build a disciplined, multi-campus data center business. The demand for compute is a structural shift, not a passing cycle, and we believe the right way to meet it is by building infrastructure that strengthens the communities that host it."

McGregor is a city located southwest of Waco, in McLennan and Coryell counties. News that Galaxy was buying land in the area surfaced in June – with the development known as Project Merlin.

Galaxy aims to build its own private substation on the campus, and will fund any local upgrades in transmission infrastructure. The site will use a closed-loop cooling system to reduce water use.

This would be Galaxy’s second data center campus. Its Helios campus is some 300 miles northwest of McGregor in Dickens County.

After breaking ground in July 2021, the 160-acre Helios campus started cryptomining operations in May 2022. Galaxy acquired the data center from Argo Blockchain in late 2022 for approximately $65m. As part of the deal, the two companies signed a two-year hosting deal.

Last year, CoreWeave committed to leasing what was at the time the full 800MW of approved capacity at the Helios campus, which will generate an average annual revenue of more than $1 billion over the 15-year term of the agreement.

Construction is underway to support the first phase of Helios under Galaxy's long-term lease agreement with CoreWeave, and the first data halls have been handed over. Galaxy says that the 1,500-acre campus has the potential to eventually support up to 3.5GW of power.

With CoreWeave set to take over the Helios campus, Galaxy Digital is moving its mining operations elsewhere, having signed a 48MW contract at Soluna's Project Kati data center in Texas.