QTS Data Centers has agreed to comply with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s recently announced standards for data center development, including participating in a comprehensive state audit that examines impacts on the electric grid, water resources and surrounding communities.

Abbott said the standards are intended to ensure growing demand from data centers does not come at the expense of Texas residents. The requirements call for data centers to pay for their own electric infrastructure, reduce pressure on the state's power grid, reuse water where possible, minimize impacts on nearby neighborhoods and disclose ownership and public financial incentives.

As part of the process, the Public Utilities Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) are reviewing pending data center interconnection requests through a comprehensive audit. Developers must disclose projected electricity demand, plans for on-site power generation, anticipated water sources and reuse strategies, water-efficient cooling technologies and measures to reduce community impacts such as noise, lighting and traffic.

Abbott said data centers that fail to complete the ERCOT audit will not be allowed to connect to the Texas electric grid.

QTS joins several other companies that have responded to the governor's directives. According to Abbott's office, Amazon and Google have pledged to work with the state under the new standards, while Chevron announced plans to build a power plant for a Microsoft data center that the governor said aligns with the requirements. Separately, Diode withdrew a proposed data center project in Henderson County after determining it could not meet the state's standards.

The announcement comes as water use by large data centers has drawn increasing attention nationwide, particularly as utilities and regulators evaluate the impacts of water-intensive cooling systems alongside rising electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence and cloud computing.