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SANTA TERESA 鈥� Oracle Corp. is moving forward with a planned open house and career fair Wednesday pertaining to Project Jupiter, a hyperscale data center complex under construction near the Santa Teresa Port of Entry.

Construction is underway on a project site larger than New Mexico State University鈥檚 Las Cruces campus, covering 1,400 acres adjacent to a state highway connecting to the border crossing a few miles to the south.

Community members had pressed Do帽a Ana County leaders for a town hall to ask questions about the project and air objections to the presence of a massive data center in the vicinity of Sunland Park and rural communities. Some time after agreeing to organize the event, it was handed over to the project鈥檚 builders, who have organized it instead as an open house led by the companies. The change led to outrage during a recent county commission meeting.

A spokesperson for Oracle said the open house 鈥渋s designed to maximize community participation and engagement鈥� and 鈥渨ill give community members direct access to project representatives and subject matter experts to ask questions and get the facts about the project.鈥�

The Wednesday evening event at the Sunland Park sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Complex will present the developers鈥� view of the project鈥檚 contributions to the region鈥檚 economy, local investments the project is making in lieu of property taxes, jobs and concerns raised in the community about its water usage, power generation and carbon emissions.

The hosts include Oracle, the center鈥檚 future tenant along with OpenAI, as well as builder Stack Infrastructure and fuel cell manufacturer Bloom Energy.

Oracle鈥檚 spokesperson said the event would also feature 鈥渢rade partners, construction teams and subcontractors鈥� to discuss hiring opportunities connected with the project.

Meanwhile, the county has reported a drastic increase in gross receipts tax revenue associated with the construction, notwithstanding the tax incentives that landed the project.

Oracle has projected the facility will fill up to 4,000 construction jobs and 1,500 positions when operations commence.

Data centers changing border region

Open real estate in the industrial parks and unused plots near the Santa Teresa Port of Entry are in higher demand this year, and the Border Industrial Association attributes the increased recruitment to Project Jupiter.

鈥淔or the first time in 35 years, our industrial absorption is not being driven by cross-border trade,鈥� the association鈥檚 president, Jerry Pacheco, said Thursday.

Since Project Jupiter broke ground in September, Pacheco said recruits to Santa Teresa included Icon Mechanical, which builds sheet metal HVAC enclosures for data centers; mechanical contractor Miller Bonded; electrical and data communications supplier Graybar; Mass Electric Construction; and more, acquiring hundreds of thousands of square feet and all involved in data center construction.

Despite investor anxiety over the future of the free trade agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada 鈥� which President Donald Trump 鈥� Pacheco said the data center was drawing manufacturers, suppliers and logistics connected to the booming data center construction industry.

Leases for industrial space are in such demand that Pacheco said new tenants might catch up with construction of new spec buildings and run out of available space.

Bloomberg News that spending on data center construction in the U.S. surpassed $50 billion in April, or 2.3% of domestic construction spending.

In the Borderplex region comprising El Paso, southern New Mexico and Chihuahua, Mexico, data centers are proving a game changer for business growth, according to Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance President Davin Lopez.

鈥淛u谩rez seems to be quietly transitioning from low-cost traditional maquiladora manufacturing to really high-tech manufacturing, and the data is showing this,鈥� Lopez told the Journal. 鈥淭he state of Chihuahua as a whole is leading all Mexican states in terms of value-added exports to the United States 鈥� and that's because of the change into more electronics and data center component manufacturing.鈥�

Answering data center opponents

Pacheco and Lopez both acknowledged that of all the industries they have worked with in bringing development to the region, none has provoked such strong opposition as data centers.

In addition to Project Jupiter, a new data center is under construction in northeast El Paso for Meta Platforms. On June 9, El Paso鈥檚 City Council a proposal to end its economic incentives for the project.

On the same day, commissioners in New Mexico鈥檚 Socorro County approved a one-year moratorium on data centers and associated infrastructure, halting for now a proposed solar and data center project there in the face of community opposition.

鈥淭here are people who have just decided, for one reason or another, they will not want a data center or an AI data center,鈥� Lopez said.

As for others with misgivings about the real economic benefits or concerns about pollution or water consumption, he said economic development specialists, tech companies and government all had more work to do to reach them with a positive story about the data center industry. He pointed to essential infrastructure as essential for easing public opposition.

鈥淲e live under the idea of scarcity, whether it's water, and the air and everything,鈥� Lopez said. 鈥淚 think our elected officials need to lead some of the conversation and meet industry halfway. 鈥� We should be investing in infrastructure like desalination, we should be investing in infrastructure like mass scale renewables, because we can do that now. The state needs to stop selling scarcity and start investing."

Algernon 顿鈥橝尘尘补蝉蝉补 is the Journal鈥檚 southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.