An Nvidia-backed cloud computing firm that provides hardware and services to power artificial intelligence development will occupy a $700 million data center under construction in Plano.
Lambda will partner with Aligned Data Center to occupy its DFW-04 data center, a liquid-cooled data center designed to support high-powered graphics processing units that handle complex math operations.
Construction on the 425,000-square-foot facility began in 2024 and is expected to finish in 2026. Aligned estimates that the total investment in the project will be nearly $700 million. The data center will be located at 601 N. Star Road.
The new data center is meant to serve the largest AI labs and innovative startups. Lambda’s cloud services and software allow engineers to build, test and deploy AI products at a large scale in fields ranging from health care to scientific research and beyond, said Robert Brooks IV, vice president of revenue at Lambda.
The partnership comes as Lambda works to expand its operations. The firm raised $480 million earlier this year from investors, which includes tech and AI chip giant Nvidia. The data center will use Nvidia’s latest processors and technology.
“What’s being done at the large-scale supercomputers is not ChatGPT,” said Aligned Data Centers CEO Andrew Schaap. “They’re trying to unlock the secrets of the universe and trying to figure out how to make life better for people.”
The data center will use Aligned’s “swappable” system, which allows air or water to be used for cooling. The system doesn’t rely heavily on evaporative cooling or municipal water. Water or a water-based glycol mix is used in a closed-loop system. The system can also run in dry mode for much of the year, which cuts water usage.
This flexibility allows Lamba to easily adapt to the next generation of technology — which is centered around direct liquid cooling, Schaap and Brooks said.
“These two things work well together in a marriage-type scenario,” Schaap said. “You’ve got innovation at the chip level and innovation at the cloud level that Lamda is an expert at. And then on our side — the infrastructure side, running the facility, running the cooling … and then that future-proofing of technology (that) we’ve got. (We’re) real excited.”
Both Aligned Data Centers and Lambda have their eyes on Dallas-Fort Worth.
Aligned has about 250 employees in D-FW and two data centers in Plano. Another data center in Mansfield is expected to finish construction in 2026. Additional announcements about new projects are expected in the coming months, Schaap said.
For Lambda, the region is also key for its customers. Dallas’ central location is a big plus, Brooks said.
“Our customers do want connectivity to other clouds, so the Microsoft … or AWS regions are close by which allows them to have more connectivity and move data in faster and cheaper,” he said.
D-FW is one of the country’s largest data center markets, with 1.4 gigawatts in operational capacity. An additional 500 megawatts is under construction, according to a year-end report from Cushman and Wakefield.
A gigawatt equals one billion watts or one thousand megawatts, and a typical LED light bulb uses about 10 watts.
“There are a lot of exciting things that are happening in Texas and Dallas in particular,” Schaap said. “We’re just happy to be part of the business community.”
