The huge data center complex proposed for Fort Bliss land in far East El Paso County will be built by a private company to serve both the Army and private-sector companies.
The complex will have a “diversified customer base to kind of make it an economically viable model, so that they’re not relying solely on taxpayer dollars to pay the bill,” David Fitzgerald, under secretary of the Army, said during a Wednesday, April 22, roundtable with El Paso news media representatives.
The roundtable preceded an evening public community meeting about the data center.
“As currently contemplated, it will be a multitiered campus; one side would be hyperscale commercial data center operations and another campus would be a (federal)-only enclave for a more secure compute.”
Getting data centers built “is a strategic priority” for the Army and the Department of War, he said.
“The reality is that the state of modern warfare and future warfare is largely going to depend on the ability to capture, process and utilize massive amounts of data.”
However, data centers on Army land are not only needed for war-fighting applications, but also for many Army administrative needs, such as payroll processing, said Fitzgerald and Fort Bliss Commanding Gen. Curtis Taylor.
The Fort Bliss complex, another planned in Utah, and likely others in the future, will be the “computational backbone of all our (Army) modernization efforts,” Fitzgerald said.
The Army in March selected a proposal from Carlyle, a global investment firm with experience in building data centers, to construct the complex on 1,384 acres of vacant Fort Bliss land in the Montana East area of El Paso County.
The Army and Carlyle are currently negotiating terms of a 50-year land lease for the complex. That will outline the data center operations, Fitzgerald said.
“The model is we are just leasing the ground, and a private partner (Carlyle) is outlaying all the cash so we are not using appropriated taxpayer dollars” to build it, he said.
“We need these capabilities, and we need to put them somewhere, but we need to do it the right way. So, we are committed to doing that.”
The complex would be built in phases, with the first facility projected to open in 2027. The total complex is projected to be completed by 2029, depending on market conditions and other factors, Fitzgerald said.
It will need massive amounts of electricity – 2.5 gigawatts of power when completed.
The power will be generated on-site, most likely with natural-gas-fueled power turbines, said Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment. It will not affect El Paso Electric customers, he promised.
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A closed-loop water system will be used to save water, but what role El Paso Water may play in supplying it is not yet known, he said.
Fitzgerald said Fort Bliss is already at the cutting edge of new technologies, with 3D-printed barracks and advanced manufacturing.
This complex “is a great way that we can kind of bracket in Fort Bliss as one of our leading, transformational installations,” he said.
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 915-546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on X, and @vkolenc.bsky.social on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Fort Bliss data center complex to be shared by Army, commercial users
Reporting by Vic Kolenc, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
