The Machine That Builds the Machine
We pointed AI at a West Texas permit database. It found the site, modeled the power, structured the financing, and rendered the campus. Before anyone announced it.
There is a text file on the TCEQ website that updates every Friday. It is pipe-delimited ASCII — the kind of format that was designed for computers, not people. Nobody covers it. Nobody watches it. It contains the air permit registrations for every new power source coming online in Texas.
It also contains, if you know what to filter for, the data center build-out before the announcements. We didn't read it manually. We pointed AI at it. The same system that finds the permit can cross-reference the power infrastructure, predict the site footprint, and render what the campus probably looks like — before a shovel moves, before a press release, before anyone is looking.
This is what it found.
The Signal
Data centers that generate their own power — on-site gas turbines, backup diesel fleets, behind-the-meter generation — have to file an air quality standard permit with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality before construction begins. This is not optional and it is not private. It is a public record in a database almost nobody reads.
On January 30, 2025, TCEQ made effective a new permit category specifically for natural gas electric generating units. The new standard permit expanded the pathway for on-site gas generation — which is increasingly how large data centers are solving the grid queue problem. Instead of waiting 18-36 months for a transmission interconnection, they bring their own power. And when they do, they file here first. [1][2]
We pulled six months of standard permit registrations — October 2024 through April 2026 — and filtered for power generation outside the Permian Basin. 340 rows. 85 distinct legal names. Then filtered again: non-Permian county, LLC with minimal web presence, geographic overlap with known data center corridors.
Three hits.
Galaxy Helios I LLC — Dickens County
Permit 179090. Filed February 6, 2025. 120 emergency diesel generators. 984 County Road 112, Afton, Texas.
Galaxy Helios I LLC registered with the Texas Comptroller on January 22, 2025 — taxpayer number 32098487682, SOS file 0805873149, mailing address 1999 Bryan St Suite 900, Dallas. [3][4] The contact on the TCEQ application is Austin Storms, Co-Head of Mining and Mission Critical at Galaxy Helios I LLC. [5]
Dickens County is where Galaxy Digital is financing the Helios data center campus — $1.4B in financing, CoreWeave as the tenant, 526 MW contracted at the time of initial disclosure. By January 2026, after ERCOT approved an additional 830 MW tranche, total approved campus power crossed 1.63 GW. [6]
The Texas Comptroller’s data center project list shows HEL02 DC filed November 7, 2025 under Galaxy Helios II LLC with CoreWeave Inc. as operator — confirming multi-building phasing on the same campus. [7]
The air permit came first. 120 diesel generators at a rural Dickens County address, filed under a brand new LLC, before any of the financing milestones and before any press coverage of the site’s scale. The diesel count alone — 120 units — is an order-of-magnitude signal for GW-scale critical load.
The permit was filed January 2025. The Phase I delivery date is H1 2026. Eleven months of silence in between.
Poolside Lf Phase 2 Dc Ops LLC — Pecos County
Permit 183235. Filed March 9, 2026. Pecos County. Lat 30.609441 N, -102.573484 W.
Poolside AI announced a Pecos County data center in October 2025. The fundraise fell apart. That was the last anyone heard.
Except someone opened a new LLC on March 4, 2026 — taxpayer 32104474260, SOS 0806474166, mailing address 548 Market St PMB 53385, San Francisco, CA. [3] That address is a Regus mailbox. The general counsel listed on the TCEQ application is Carson Klingenberg at carson@poolside.ai. [8]
The entity is named Poolside Lf Phase 2 Dc Ops LLC.
Six weeks after formation, they filed a power generation permit in Pecos County.
The project isn’t dead. It’s regrouping under a new vehicle.
Abilene DC 1 LLC — Taylor County
Permit 177263. Formed June 12, 2024. Taylor County.
Taylor County is Abilene. Abilene is where Crusoe built the first operational Stargate site — 600 MW live, 1.2 GW contracted, per Epoch AI’s April 2026 analysis. [10]
Abilene DC 1 LLC — taxpayer 32095486604, SOS 0805587707, Austin mailing address — filed a Taylor County air permit for five 38 MW Titan 350 turbines and five 34.1 MW GE LM2500 units. Approximately 360 MW of behind-the-meter gas generation. [9][3]
The LLC formed June 2024. The Stargate announcement came later.
The permit came before the announcement. It always does.
What This Means
The permit is just the entry point. What comes after is the part that’s new.
AI found this site. AI modeled what it needs to run. AI rendered what it will look like. The human role in that workflow was pointing it at the right question.
That’s not a research methodology. That’s a new way to develop infrastructure.
Next Friday, TCEQ updates the file. The next three are already in there. The question is whether you see them before or after the announcement.
If you want to run this methodology on your market — reply here or request map access at infrastructure-research.com. The map is live. The signal set updates weekly.
The Helios campus footprint — GPU halls, cooling towers, switchyard, BTM gas generation, oriented to the 138kV line — was generated by the system from the permit address and local infrastructure geometry. The capital stack was modeled independently using Rangekeeper. Both outputs preceded any satellite confirmation or public announcement. [Map and model available on request.]
Sources
[1] TCEQ Standard Air Permits index. https://www.tceq.texas.gov/permitting/air/newsourcereview/standard
[2] TCEQ Air Quality Standard Permit for Natural Gas Electric Generating Units. https://www.tceq.texas.gov/permitting/air/newsourcereview/combustion/ng-egu-sp
[3] Texas Comptroller Active Franchise Tax Permit Holders. https://data.texas.gov/Government-and-Taxes/Active-Franchise-Tax-Permit-Holders/9cir-efmm
[4] Comptroller franchise account — Galaxy Helios I LLC. https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/franchise/account-status/search/32098487682
[5] TCEQ Records — Galaxy Helios I standard permit correspondence (dID 8711479). https://records.tceq.texas.gov/cs/idcplg?IdcService=TCEQ_EXTERNAL_SEARCH_GET_FILE&dID=8711479&Rendition=Web
[6] Galaxy Digital, Form 8-K August 15 2025 — $1,400,000,000 senior secured term loan facility for Galaxy Helios I LLC. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1859392/000185939225000039/glxy-20250815.htm — and press release: https://investor.galaxy.com/news-releases/news-release-details/galaxy-closes-14-billion-project-financing-facility-accelerate
[7] Texas Comptroller Data Centers in Texas — HEL02 DC / Galaxy Helios II LLC. https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/data-centers/data-center-lists.php
[8] TCEQ Records — Poolside Initial Application (dID 9580276). https://records.tceq.texas.gov/cs/idcplg?IdcService=GET_FILE&dID=9580276&dDocName=8294578
[9] TCEQ Records — Abilene DC 1 technical review (dID 8600163). https://records.tceq.texas.gov/cs/idcplg?IdcService=TCEQ_EXTERNAL_SEARCH_GET_FILE&dID=8600163&Rendition=Web
[10] Epoch AI, "OpenAI Stargate: Where the US Sites Stand." https://epoch.ai/blog/openai-stargate-where-the-us-sites-stand — note Epoch published methodology revisions on capacity estimates after publication; verify current figures at https://epoch.ai/data/data-centers-documentation