Demand for industrial outdoor storage yards, usually parcels under 10 acres that hold construction equipment and materials, is rising with the data center build-out. Rents have risen more than 110% since 2020 across the top eight markets, including Houston, Savannah and Norfolk, according to Alterra IOS. The equipment backlog needs somewhere to wait.
Google, OpenAI, Meta, AWS and NVIDIA met with ERCOT and Texas regulators on Dec. 16, 2025, two days before ERCOT's batch study for large loads. The meeting shows who was in the room as Texas wrote the rules for connecting data centers.
General Compute raised a $100 million Series A led by Blackbird Ventures and Abstract Ventures, at an $800 million post-money valuation. Instead of building large data centers, it rents space, uses smaller power sources and converts former bitcoin-mining sites, and its CEO expects to deploy 75 MW of capacity in 2027. Reusing existing power sites is a fast lane while new hookups wait.
AMESA launched AutonomyStack, a platform to build industrial AI agents, train them in simulated operations, and test them against operating KPIs before they touch a live process. Human experts set how much autonomy each agent gets and when it must escalate, and an integration layer connects agents to plant systems through APIs and MCP. The release names no customer or result yet.