Veteran data center developer Stream is set to partner with a natural gas firm to develop a large-scale campus in Texas.

New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. this week announced that it has entered into a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to form a joint venture with Stream Data Centers for the development and financing of its Texas Critical Data Centers campus (TCDC) in West Texas.

Equity capital will be provided by an unnamed third-party sponsor and arranger of institutional capital.

“The fact that Stream and a premier provider of infrastructure capital have chosen to partner with New Era validates both the strategic value of the TCDC campus and the strength of our development strategy and platform,” said E. Will Gray II, New Era CEO. “This LOI represents an important step in advancing TCDC toward delivery, and we remain focused on progressing toward a definitive agreement with Stream. We expect to invest alongside our partner, given our conviction in this project, this market, and the growing need for purpose-built, power-ready data center infrastructure. Our structure is designed to position New Era as an ongoing participant in the asset’s economics as the campus is developed.”

Under the LOI, New Era will contribute its site control and local relationships; the institutional Investor will offer equity capital and source debt financing; and Stream will provide its data center development, leasing, and operating capabilities.

New Era said it will have the right to co-invest “significant equity capital” into the project alongside the unnamed institutional investor.

Founded in 1999, Stream’s footprint extends across Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, New York, and California. The company was recently acquired by Apollo Global Management from Stream Realty Partners.

Michael Lahoud, Stream CEO, added: “We are proud to be partnered with New Era to build out a world-scale data center in West Texas, which is quickly becoming a premier data center territory.”

Formerly known as New Era Helium, Texas-based New Era Digital started as an exploration and production company sourcing helium produced in association with the production of natural gas reserves in the US. The company rebranded last year and now bills itself as a developer and operator of digital infrastructure and integrated power assets.

The company first announced plans for a 90MW off-grid data center development outside Odessa in Ector County, Texas, back in 2024.

Powered by a combination of grid capacity and natural gas, the project is now expected to have an initial capacity of around 200MW, with the potential to scale beyond 1GW. The company acquired a 438-acre plot of land last year, where it plans to construct the facility, and is in the process of buying a further 54 acres.

Construction is set to start this year for a 2027/2028 launch. The first 200MW phase will be powered via utility capacity, with some 450MW of on-site gas capacity due to come online after that. Site plans suggest up to ten two-story buildings could be developed.

The company is planning a modular deployment using its 25MW, 200,000 sq ft (18,580 sqm) Atom design, fabricated by RK Mission Critical. The liquid-cooled design reportedly supports up to 2,500 racks and densities up to 135kW.

On the power side, New Era has partnered with Thunderhead Energy Solutions, an on-site generation firm, to finance, construct, and operate around 250MW of behind-the-meter gas-fired power generation. TCDC has signed a non-binding LOI with Mawgan Capital to deploy 250MW of gas generation to supply the data center.

AI cloud provider Sharon AI was originally a partner on the project, but New Era acquired the company’s stake in the project earlier this year. New Era later partnered with Primary Digital Infrastructure, an independent data center investment platform, to codevelop the project.

New Era is also targeting a multi-gigawatt-scale data center campus in New Mexico.