Just outside the small rural communities of Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, New Mexico, about a dozen miles from El Paso, Texas, Big Tech is building one of its biggest behemoths yet. Oracle’s Project Jupiter data center would be 1,400 acres, bigger than New York City’s Central Park. Parking lots are already paved; structures are already rising for the water-thirsty and energy-hungry facility. Yet, the proposed energy source for Project Jupiter doesn’t even have the required air permit to operate. 

Project Jupiter isn’t alone. Throughout New Mexico and the rest of the U.S., data centers are springing up seemingly overnight. Developers are moving fast, shrouded in secrecy. They’re building polluting facilities before residents even have the time to say “No thank you.”

In New Mexico, Food & Water Watch has been on the ground organizing with community members to stop Project Jupiter. Each week brings surprises and new information that make this data center even more mind-boggling. 

It reflects much of the playbook that Big Tech and its developers are following nationwide. As Oracle works to ram Project Jupiter through, the need for a nationwide moratorium, or pause, on data center construction has never been greater. 

Here’s what we’ve learned about Big Tech’s playbook so far:

1. Forge Secretive, Closed-Door Deals

The saga of Project Jupiter began in September 2025, when Doña Ana County Commissioners approved $165 billion in government-backed bonds to fund the project. This is an astronomical number. For comparison, the entire U.S. Interstate Highway System cost less than half that much, adjusting for inflation.

Outrageously, county officials had negotiated a deal with developers under a non-disclosure agreement, so even county commissioners were left in the dark until mere weeks before they voted on the proposal. 

Since then, pending lawsuits have alleged that the Board of County Commissioners violated state law by going into a closed-door session during a hearing to consider adopting ordinances related to Project Jupiter and by adopting the ordinances based on an incomplete application. 

2. Greenwash, Greenwash, Greenwash

Of data centers’ many threats to our health and environment, two of the biggest are their astonishing water and energy consumption. Across the country, data centers are also driving higher utility bills, more fossil fuel pollution, and dirtier water supplies. 

In New Mexico, the water demands are especially concerning as 94% of the state is in drought, and water resources are rapidly depleting.

Nevertheless, Oracle is building Project Jupiter in the desert. It claims Jupiter’s “closed-loop” cooling system won’t strain water resources, but the exact details of Project Jupiter’s water use remain unclear. There are concerns that it could be as high as 2.2 million gallons per day. 

In any case, in a place as water-stressed as New Mexico, any amount of water going to corporate profits instead of people is too much. Moreover, closed-loop cooling comes at a trade-off — it requires more energy and more toxic chemicals than traditional cooling systems. 

When it comes to powering Project Jupiter, Oracle has already changed course after its initial plans for a new gas plant sparked major blowback for its energy consumption and pollution. But its new, “greener” plan to power Project Jupiter is almost just as outrageous. 

The data center now plans to get its energy from a microgrid and gas-powered fuel cells, but these fuel cells have never been deployed at this scale. And the new plan will still result in 10.1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year — nearly double that of the city of Albuquerque. 

At the same time, thanks to a last-minute loophole in the state’s public utilities law, Project Jupiter and other projects powered by microgrids may be able to dodge a 100% renewable energy transition for nearly 20 years.

3. Move Fast With Fossil Fuels

Project Jupiter’s microgrid still needs an air permit for the project to move forward. The air permit application has been met with community outcry, which pushed the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) to schedule a public hearing. 

Still, construction at Project Jupiter continues. Developers are moving full steam ahead, marring the landscape and disrupting neighbors’ quality of life, without any assurance that they’ll be able to power this project as planned.

And where will Project Jupiter’s gas come from? A nearly 18-mile pipeline that will deliver 400-million cubic feet of gas per day to the data center, called the Green Chile Pipeline. In May 2026, the United States Bureau of Land Management fast-tracked authorization for the pipeline to cross public land. It completed its environmental assessment of the pipeline in 14 days under emergency permitting procedures.

Project Jupiter is just one of many data centers driving more dirty energy. Just across the border near El Paso, Texas, a Meta data center is spurring El Paso Electric to propose a new gas-fired power plant. In New York, the data center boom is spurring Big Tech to push for nuclear energy, and in Pennsylvania, the fracking industry is chomping at the bit to power more data centers. 

Big Tech’s goal is to get dirty infrastructure built as fast as possible. And while they profit from their data centers, the rest of us get locked into higher energy bills, more pollution, and worsening climate chaos.

4. Pick On a Small, Marginalized Community

New Mexico has a long history as a national sacrifice zone, treated as disposable by corporations and the federal government alike. For decades, the environmental and health costs of extractive industries — including uranium mining and atomic testing, oil and gas, and the dairy industry — have been foisted onto low-income and rural communities of color. 

Project Jupiter and projects like it will only extend that legacy. Doña Ana County already faces more than its fair share of hardship. The majority-Latin county has high unemployment, and 1 in 4 children experience poverty. 

Siting behemoth data centers like Project Jupiter in places like Doña Ana County isn’t the result of happenstance. It follows a long legacy of extractive industries invading low-income, non-white, or rural communities that have less political power or economic means to fight back. And these communities bear the brunt of the harms once the industry sets up shop, compounding the burden of already-existing pollution.

Already, the El Paso-Las Cruces region is one of the most ozone-polluted in the country, and particulate matter pollution far exceeds Environmental Protection Agency standards. The gas-powered microgrids powering Project Jupiter will contribute even more harmful pollutants. According to its air permit application, the microgrid for Project Jupiter will emit 150 tons of particulate matter (PM 2.5 and 10) and 37 tons of nitrogen oxides. These pollutants contribute to smog and exacerbate asthma and elderly cognitive decline.

Moreover, residents near Project Jupiter have been traumatized by mismanagement by the local water utility, which had supplied customers with arsenic-filled water for decades. Now, Project Jupiter poses another threat to their limited water supply.

While a new data center could get fresh water for its operation, surrounding communities are left with dealing with the legacy of having been provided arsenic-laden water for their own use. 

5. Deploy a Disingenuous Public Relations Campaign

New Mexico residents have faced an onslaught of advertising encouraging them to support Project Jupiter. One of the biggest talking points is the promise of economic development. Oracle says that Project Jupiter will sustain 1,500 jobs once it is complete and bring in $113 million a year in “economic impact.” But research reveals that those promises could ring hollow. 

For one, data center jobs are usually quite few in number. For another, the tax breaks that data centers exact from localities matter. While pledging a mere $422 million to county resources, Project Jupiter received property tax abatements worth billions.

Nevertheless, Project Jupiter’s boosters have spent big trying to convince residents that the data center is good for the region. An anonymous out-of-state group called Elevate New Mexico deployed mailers and social media ads encouraging people to write to NMED in support of the air permit for the Project’s microgrid. Elevate New Mexico now faces a lawsuit from the State Ethics Commission for its campaign.

Meanwhile, a California-based firmed called Xomad began an influencer campaign, offering payment to social media creators in New Mexico to tout the benefits of Project Jupiter. Oracle itself launched a marketing campaign to promote Project Jupiter, running Spanish and English ads across TV, radio, and social media. 

In the most outrageous development yet, reports have surfaced that the names of residents and elected officials — including a state representative — have been used to support Project Jupiter without their consent.

We Need to Stop Data Centers in New Mexico and Everywhere!

Big Tech isn’t special. They’re following a playbook that corporations have used for decades, even centuries. The closed-door deals, environmental injustices, greenwashing, and marketing ploys all move toward one outcome: getting their project built as fast as possible, before residents can stop the extraction and pollution.

But we’re not letting them get away with it. Across the country, neighbors are joining neighbors to defeat data centers purported to be “done deals.” They’re successfully demanding the pauses we need to find if and how data centers can be built in ways that put people and the environment first. 

The data center boom is not inevitable, as much as Big Tech would like us to think so. Fervent pushback in New Mexico has started to turn the tide against Project Jupiter. In March, community members sent in more than 7,000 comments to NMED on Project Jupiter’s initial proposed gas plant. 

In July, NMED announced it would hold a public meeting on the air permit application for the microgrid in response to public pushback. And this summer, Socorro and Santa Fe Counties both passed moratoriums to press pause on new data center construction.

Together, we can stand up to Big Tech, combat the industry’s playbook, and protect our communities.