CyrusOne has commenced construction on a new data center campus in Freestone County, Texas, situated approximately 90 miles south of Dallas.

The development marks the latest expansion by the KKR-owned company into the Texas market, where it already operates or has planned more than 14 data centers, with more than half concentrated in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

A Campus Built Around Natural Gas Power

The Freestone County project is being developed adjacent to the Freestone Energy Center, a 1-gigawatt natural gas-fired combined-cycle facility operated by Calpine.

The power plant sits on approximately 506 acres near the city of Fairfield, and Calpine secured regulatory approval to co-locate a data center at the site around May of this year.

CyrusOne's path to breaking ground at the location came through a partnership with Constellation. Earlier this year, the two companies announced an initial 380-megawatt agreement to connect and serve a new data center development adjacent to the Calpine-operated plant.

The companies subsequently signed a second agreement for an additional 380 megawatts at the same site, though full details of the total planned development have not been publicly disclosed by CyrusOne.

Groundbreaking Marks Formal Start of Construction

CyrusOne broke ground on the Freestone County campus last week, formalizing the start of what is shaping up to be a significant behind-the-meter data center development in central Texas.

The proximity to the Freestone Energy Center is central to the project's structure, with the data center campus designed to draw power directly from the adjoining natural gas generation facility rather than relying on the broader grid.

The behind-the-meter model has attracted growing attention from data center developers and hyperscalers seeking reliable, large-scale power for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads.

Locating data center infrastructure directly alongside dedicated generation assets is seen as a way to secure power capacity at a time when grid interconnection queues remain lengthy across many markets.

Freestone Joins a Growing Texas Portfolio

The Freestone County development is not CyrusOne's only active project in Texas tied to a Calpine facility. The company is also developing a 400-megawatt campus adjacent to Calpine's Thad Hill Energy Center in Bosque County.

Construction on the first data center at that location is currently underway, with the facility expected to become operational by the fourth quarter of 2026.

Together, the two Calpine-adjacent projects represent a substantial commitment by CyrusOne to behind-the-meter power arrangements in Texas, a state that has become one of the most active data center development markets in the United States.

CyrusOne's broader Texas footprint spans more than 14 facilities, both planned and operational, with the majority clustered around the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.

CyrusOne's Broader Footprint

CyrusOne, which is owned by private equity firm KKR, operates more than 50 data centers across markets in the United States and Europe.

The company has been expanding aggressively in line with surging demand for data center capacity driven by cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications.

The Freestone County groundbreaking adds to a pipeline of projects the company has been advancing across multiple markets.

The co-location arrangement with Calpine, facilitated through the Constellation agreements, reflects a broader industry trend of data center operators forging direct relationships with power generators to secure the large blocks of electricity that modern hyperscale and AI-focused facilities require.