The Artificial Intelligence boom is shaping residential and office markets in San Francisco, but Texas has a big ol’ dog in that fight called the Permian Basin.
Texas will lead the way in AI data centers, especially in West Texas, because of an oversupply of natural gas from the oilfield that created so much of the state’s wealth in the first place.
That’s the view of Texas real estate power player Ross Perot Jr., the Hillwood chairman who is also the chairman of the board of directors for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“A stunning revolution” is coming behind AI, and the U.S. can win out over China, Perot said at an Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce event this week.
That excess natural gas in Texas is attracting AI data centers and related energy infrastructure development to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, making it the second-biggest market for data centers behind Virginia.
Texas and the country are well positioned for “the economic boom that we’re going to have,” Perot said.
“North America will dominate the world for the next 100 years,” he said. “If we get immigration reform, energy reform and all the energy in North America brought to bear, no one can touch us.”
The visionary behind Fort Worth’s AllianceTexas has proven to see beyond the curve. Hillwood started Alliance 35 years ago as a cargo airport, now owned by the City of Fort Worth, and it grew into a mixed-use logistics hub with everything from a retail town center to soundstages for prolific “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan.
Perot warned that tariffs and overregulation could hold Texas back from “economic freedom,” and he hinted that the U.S. Chamber’s lobbying helped persuade President Donald Trump to put a 90-day pause on his initial tariff plan.
Politicians aren’t always speaking to reality regarding tariffs and immigration, Perot said.
“They know the immigration problem, they know the tariff problem, and they’re all working hard to try to get it fixed,” Perot said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “Backstage, they know it. Onstage, you might get rhetoric, but our job at the chamber is to really work pure data backstage. And we’re trusted by the elected officials. If we tell them something, they’re going to know this isn’t PR spin.”
Perot was early on Taylor Sheridan as well.
Sheridan has already filmed scenes from “Landman” in Alliance buildings undergoing a $65 million conversion to filming studios. Their deal was years in the making as Perot was bullish on Sheridan from the get-go.
“You have a Fort Worth citizen, Taylor Sheridan, and his shows really do resonate with the Texas crowd and the U.S. crowd, and it’s just a fluke we have him,” Perot said in a talk to real estate students at Texas Christian University this week.
“That’s why I said: ‘This guy generates so much activity. How do we embrace him as a city? How do we have filming here? And where will it go?”
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