Schmidt\u2019s new Bolt Data & Energy is taking the one-stop shop approach for hyperscalers\u2019 land, power, and water needs for their data center campuses. Bolt has teamed up with Texas Pacific Land, a little-known oil and gas player with a long history and a $20 billion market cap that happens to offer 882,000 acres of West Texas land\u2014more acreage than Rhode Island\u2014with easy access to natural gas and renewable energy resources. Oh, and the company just so happens to have its own water services business for oil and gas that can translate to help for thirsty data centers as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnergy is the main constraint in scaling AI. If we want to keep America competitive, we have to solve this problem. Bolt was created to address this challenge,\u201d Schmidt said in an emailed interview with Fortune<\/em>. \u201cWe realized that combining my technical expertise with TPL\u2019s unrivaled land, abundant water, and access to low-cost energy could create the infrastructure needed to meet the virtually infinite demand for compute.\u201d<\/p>\n Having literally co-authored the book on AI\u2014The Age of AI: And Our Human Future,<\/em> in 2021, a year before the launch of ChatGPT\u2014Schmidt sees the age of AI and advanced robotics as the \u201cFourth Industrial Revolution.\u201d He believes data center campus developers such as Bolt are necessary to compete with China in the global AI race.<\/p>\n \u201cOur platform begins with West Texas\u2019 abundant natural gas but is designed to transition to renewable and clean energy, with nuclear power also included in future plans,\u201d Schmidt said. \u201cBy integrating land, power generation, and data centers, we can create a scalable, resilient infrastructure capable of meeting the growing global demand for compute. Our goal is to ensure AI develops responsibly, supports American competitiveness, and delivers technology that benefits humanity while minimizing climate impact.\u201d<\/p>\n Schmidt, 70, served as Google\u2019s CEO for a decade, from 2001 to 2011, and then continued as executive chairman of Google and then Alphabet through 2017 and as technical advisor until 2020. He\u2019s stayed plenty busy since, though. He\u2019s also now the CEO of aerospace manufacturer Relatively Space, and cofounder of the non-profit that organizes the AI+ Expo for National Competitiveness.<\/p>\n Schmidt is the chairman of Bolt, and he cofounded it with Investors Todd Meister and Allan Tessler, who is a major investor in Texas Pacific Land. To date,\u00a0Bolt has raised $150 million in initial capital, with TPL contributing a $50 million investment, including right of first refusal to supply critical water resources to the new data center projects.<\/p>\n \u201cWe felt like we wanted to capture more of the value chain than just a land lease or a water contract, so that\u2019s why we actually invested in Bolt,\u201d Texas Pacific Land CEO Ty Glover told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cWhen you\u2019re looking at who you might want to partner with in a space that you\u2019re not an expert in, then who better than a titan of that industry like Eric Schmidt.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas Fuller\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket\u2014Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n To understand how Texas Pacific Land came by such a massive acreage holding, it helps to look back at its history of more than 150 years.<\/p>\n The legacy dates to 1871, when a federal charter was granted to build a national railroad from Texas to California. At the time, railroad companies received federal land grants in exchange for laying tracks.<\/p>\n The railroad failed for a variety of financial reasons, but it resulted in the formation of the Texas Pacific Land Trust to manage the railroad\u2019s acreage. That acreage became quite valuable when the Texas oil boom took hold in the Permian Basin more than a century ago.<\/p>\n Texas Pacific has been publicly traded for almost 100 years, but it existed as a sleepy trust collecting oil and gas royalties until 2021, when an investor feud resulted in the trust converting into a much more proactive corporation.<\/p>\n \u201cComing from a failed railroad to a gorilla in the oil and gas space and now entering the AI space is exciting. It\u2019s a new frontier for us and for West Texas,\u201d Glover said.<\/p>\n As legacy data center regions like Virginia get saturated with facilities, the frontier regions such as West Texas are going be more attractive, Glover said, with easier regulatory environments and more sparse populations.<\/p>\n \u201cOur hope is we\u2019re moving dirt on projects within the next couple of years,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat\u2019s attractive about TPL is we can really scale this. You can build multiple, multi-gig data center campuses with one owner. Just like in other industries, scale really matters here.\u201d<\/p>\n Schmidt said Bolt plans to start with one anchor customer and grow from there. He name-dropped many potential anchors: Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Oracle, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Palantir, and even the White House\u2019s new Genesis Mission for AI.<\/p>\n Bolt is taking a bespoke approach similar to that of Texas-based AI power startup Fermi, backed by former U.S. energy secretary and Texas governor Rick Perry. Fermi launched an IPO in October before it had even started collecting revenue and quickly surged to a $16 billion market cap, though its value has since plunged to $5 billion at the end of 2025. However, Bolt is staying private and not banking on public investor interest in the AI boom.<\/p>\n The plan is to start with natural gas-fired power and grow to 1 gigawatt capacity, Schmidt said, then build more campuses as the power generation sources expand to include wind, solar, and battery power and, eventually, nuclear power over time. The goal is to grow to 10 gigawatts of power\u2014enough to electrify about 7 million homes\u2014on Texas Pacific Land acreage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re taking a different approach from traditional data center models that lease space and buy power from the grid. By vertically integrating energy ownership with advanced data infrastructure, we can design a platform that is both efficient and resilient,\u201d Schmidt said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #ExGoogle #CEO #Eric #Schmidt #jumps #data #center #business #failed #Texas #railroad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[266,1671,529,1059,1150,6901,6900,410,715,3546,6903,6902,2422],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2252027356.jpg?format=webp&w=1440&q=100\"\/)
<\/div>\nWest Texas as an AI epicenter<\/h2>\n