New Era Helium and Sharon AI have expanded the capacity of a planned natural gas-powered data center in the Permian Basin, West Texas, US.
The binding Letter of Intent (LOI) increased the capacity to 250MW from 90MW after additional electricity capacity for the project was secured.
The partners expect to finalize the 50/50 joint venture before December 23, 2024.
New Era will enter into a gas supply agreement with the joint venture at a mutually agreed-upon fixed cost for five years plus three five-year options. It will also provide the energy infrastructure required to power the project, including gas-fired power plant design and construction, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and associated pipeline works.
“Together with Sharon AI, we believe we are well-positioned to deliver cutting-edge energy infrastructure that meets the evolving demands of the AI-driven digital age,” said E. Will Gray II, CEO of New Era Helium.
Sharon AI will be the exclusive data center equipment provider and design and operate the data center. The company expects to work with former partners, such as Nvidia and Lenovo, on the data center's network architecture, GPU, and design.
“We look forward to advancing into the engineering phase and engaging in further offtake discussions, which will bring us closer to delivering this groundbreaking net-zero energy data center in the Permian Basin,” said Wolf Schubert, CEO of Sharon AI.
The plant has the potential for phased expansion, including adding new offtake partners, including large energy users and data center hyperscalers.
The initial agreement signed last month selected Pecos Slope Field in New Mexico, owned and operated by New Era Helium, as the site for the data center. However, the joint venture has narrowed the site to an unnamed location in West Texas, and Pecos Slope was not mentioned in its latest release.
The power plant was expected to capture approximately 250,000 metric tons of CO2, qualifying it for certain CCS tax credits. However, following the expansion of the data center and associated power supply, the joint venture did not provide any updates on whether the level of CO2 captured will also be expanded
DCD has contacted both firms to confirm the CCS system's size and the data center location.
Founded this year, Sharon AI is a high-performance computing company that focuses on AI cloud GPU compute infrastructure. The company has Nvidia L40S, H100, and AMD MI3000X GPUs at Equinix and NextDC data centers, as well as custom-built Modular Data Centers (MDCs).
New Era Helium is an exploration and production company that sources helium produced in association with the production of natural gas reserves in the US. The company was made public earlier this month following a merger with Roth CH. The new company began trading on the Nasdaq on December 9, 2024.
