Project redesign, ERCOT rule changes show how contractors, utilities are adapting to escalating hyperscale AI infrastructure demands
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Jacobs has secured a sole-source engineering, procurement and construction management contract (EPMC) for energy infrastructure company Hut 8’s planned Beacon Point artificial intelligence data center campus in Nueces County, Texas.
The award extends a partnership established earlier this year after Jacobs was named EPCM lead for Hut 8’s River Bend campus in Louisiana and comes as contractors and grid operators adapt to escalating power and interconnection demands tied to hyperscale AI facilities.
The multi-phase Beacon Point campus is designed to support up to 1 GW of utility capacity. Its initial 352-MW phase is backed by a 15-year, triple-net lease valued at $9.8 billion over the base term, including a 3.0% annual escalator, according to Hut 8 disclosures.
The tenant, an unnamed «high-investment-grade company» cited in investor materials, will deploy dedicated compute infrastructure at the site to support AI training and inference workloads.
Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot told Reuters the agreement is structured on a «take-or-pay, triple-net basis with no termination for convenience.» Three renewal options could push total contract value to approximately $25.1 billion, with expected average annual net operating income of approximately $655 million upon stabilization.
Jacobs will oversee phased delivery, integrated procurement and construction management, applying design elements from the Louisiana project to the new campus and deploying a data center digital twin to simulate critical assets during commissioning. Initial energization is targeted for 2027. The award comes as ERCOT advances proposed interconnection and reliability rule changes tied to large computational loads.
«This follow-on award underscores Hut 8’s confidence in Jacobs’ ability to deliver complex AI infrastructure with speed, safety and certainty,» Jacobs Chair and CEO Bob Pragada said, announcing the award. «By combining our EPCM leadership with advanced digital twin technology, we are setting the benchmark for AI infrastructure deployment, optimization and resiliency.»
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The project also shows how rapidly power-density assumptions are shifting across AI infrastructure design. Beacon Point was initially underwritten to serve Hut 8’s affiliated subsidiary, American Bitcoin Corp., as part of a bitcoin mining strategy, before being repositioned to AI.
ERCOT data show projected large-load interconnection requests accelerating sharply through 2030 as AI campuses and other high-density computational facilities reshape transmission planning and grid studies.
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Chart courtesy of ERCOT
Following that shift, the first data hall was initially scoped for 224 MW before being redesigned to 352 MW after NVIDIA’s DSX reference architecture advanced toward materially higher rack-level power densities.
Hut 8 said the redesign increased planned IT capacity 57% without expanding the project’s land or utility footprint. The campus is now engineered to that standard, with NVIDIA engaged as technology partner alongside Jacobs, Vertiv and AEP Texas, a subsidiary of American Electric Power.
«Next generation AI infrastructure will be defined by how quickly power can be converted into AI capacity,» Vertiv CEO Giordano Albertazzi said.
The first phase requires approximately 500 MW of utility capacity. Hut 8 has executed an interconnection agreement with AEP Texas for the full 1-GW campus and has already funded contribution-in-aid-of-construction requirements and commenced substation construction. The Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp. is listed as a project partner.
Hut 8 said the project sits within a broader 8,375-MW pipeline spanning projects under construction, development, exclusivity and diligence. The company said its total contracted AI data center capacity now stands at 597 MW with an aggregate base-term contract value of approximately $16.8 billion.
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ERCOT Reworks Large-Load Interconnection Process
The regulatory backdrop is evolving alongside a growing pipeline of hyperscale AI and computational infrastructure projects.
On April 29, ERCOT’s technical advisory committee voted to recommend new frequency and voltage ride-through requirements for data centers and other high-density computational facilities—a category ERCOT now formally classifies as Large Computational Loads.
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ERCOT | Study Batch Presentation
ERCOT documented repeated instances of such facilities tripping offline during routine grid disturbances dating back to October 2022 and said more than 200 GW of large loads are currently seeking interconnection to the Texas grid, a volume the energy provider says has strained its existing case-by-case study process.
After the April 29 vote, ERCOT filed a technical correction to restore an exemption cutoff date inadvertently omitted from the approved draft, signaling the rules remain in active refinement ahead of state regulatory submission.
A separate interconnection framework reform aims to replace individual project studies with a system-wide batch study process. ERCOT has described the current approach as having «proved inadequate» amid a surge in large load requests, with each new application in a transmission zone capable of invalidating prior studies and extending project timelines by years. The reform was tabled on May 13 at ERCOT’s request, pending resolution of remaining technical and policy questions, with a Board vote targeted for June 1 and an effective date of July 10.
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Beacon Point is Hut 8’s second AI campus, following River Bend in West Feliciana Parish, La. That project carries a 245-MW IT capacity lease under a 15-year, $7-billion agreement, with initial commissioning targeted for the first quarter of 2027.
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Hut 8 | SEC Filing Q1 2026
To finance River Bend’s construction, Hut 8 closed a $3.25 billion offering of fully amortizing 16.5-year investment-grade senior secured notes—described by the company as the first single-sponsor data center project to access the investment-grade construction bond market—on a non-recourse basis.
Back in Nueces County, commissioners met May 13—the same day ERCOT tabled its interconnection overhaul—to discuss a proposed Beacon Point Data Center Reinvestment Zone, entering closed session to confer with attorneys on the legal and economic development dimensions of a potential agreement.
ENR reached out to ERCOT and Jacobs for additional information, but did not receive an immediate response.
