Texas sites.
Power first.

Start with evidence of usable power

A nearby substation, an old utility bill and an energized building answer different questions. Before evaluating a parcel for GPU infrastructure, establish the capacity available to the proposed operation, the service conditions and the work needed before that capacity can be used.

For a 5–10 MW project, request the existing service agreement, single-line diagram, recent demand history, equipment ratings and a written utility response to the proposed load. Confirm transfer or change-of-use conditions instead of assuming that a former industrial or mining service carries over unchanged.

Describe the ramp to full load as well as the final demand. The utility needs to understand what will connect, where, and when. Oncor’s service request portal includes additions to existing commercial loads.

Compare three starting points

QIT’s planning preference is to evaluate existing powered properties first. This is a way to reduce unresolved work, not a guarantee that a reused site will be faster. Obsolete protection, limited fiber or a new cooling requirement can change the result.

The site selection checklist

• Power: usable MW, voltage, service date, utility obligations and expansion conditions.
• Reliability: outage history, maintenance arrangements, ride-through needs and backup scope.
• Connectivity: carrier proposals, physical routes, bandwidth and latency to the intended users.
• Cooling: summer design conditions, heat-rejection space, water needs and noise constraints.
• Construction: geotechnical information, drainage, foundations, crane access and delivery routes.
• Approvals: land use, building, electrical, environmental and fire requirements for the actual design.
• Expansion: room for later modules and enough shared infrastructure to support them.

Compare Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, West Texas and other candidate areas using the same evidence. A city-level ranking cannot establish the capacity or delivery date of a specific parcel.

Plan 1 MW blocks against the facility load

Define whether “1 MW” means IT load or total facility demand. In a planning example with a PUE of 1.20, a 1 MW IT block requires 1.20 MW at the facility boundary. A 5 MW supply would therefore support at most four whole blocks; a 10 MW supply, eight, before additional design margin or other site loads. QIT containers are rated at 1 MW IT each, so the same arithmetic gives the container count.

Build the expansion schedule around metered demand and agreed capacity. Confirm which systems must be installed for the final build from day one and which can grow with each phase.

Keep permitting on the critical path

Texas’s September 21, 2026 directive instructed TCEQ to halt permits sought by data center projects pending the ERCOT audit. The announcement does not provide a small-project exemption. A 5–10 MW plan should therefore not assume that its size removes environmental approval risk.

Source: Office of the Texas Governor, September 21, 2026. Reviewed November 2, 2026. Confirm the current treatment of your design with the relevant agencies before setting an operating date.

Map every approval to the proposed works, including generation, cooling and ground disturbance. Treat grid connection and environmental approvals as separate workstreams. Reusing a site can reduce construction scope; it does not by itself establish that approvals transfer or that new ones are unnecessary.

Build a site brief

Send QIT the address, power documents, proposed workload, available drawings and target date. We can use the brief to discuss the missing interfaces and a phased modular deployment.

Continue with powered land versus powered shell, the modular data center budget and the deployment plan.