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Cipher Riesel Data Center Campus (Waco area)

Riesel, McLennan County, TX

Source: Primary source

Cipher Riesel Data Center Campus (Waco area) is a proposed data center in McLennan County, TX, operated by Amazon Data Services, Inc. and ultimately owned by Amazon.com, Inc.. DataCentersExposed has documented 500 MW of reported power capacity at this site.

Reporting by · Updated Jun 17, 2026

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Real parent
Amazon.com, Inc.
Operator
Amazon Data Services, Inc.
Power
500 MW
Attribution & capacity confidence:mediumprimary source

Overview

source: link

Cipher plans a 500MW data center campus near a coal plant outside Waco, Texas. Discovered from news coverage and promoted after review; details to be enriched from primary sources.

Operator chain

Grid & water — why here

source: HIFLD · EPA
Nearest substation
2.4 mi
Unknown304305 · 345 kV
Transmission line
0.8 mi
345 kV line
Municipal water
Served
City Of Riesel

The closest existing grid infrastructure and the municipal water system this location sits in — the same constraints the buildout model screens on (it won't site a campus more than ~2 km from a substation or ~5 km from municipal water). Distances are straight-line to public HIFLD/EPA features, not a metered connection.

In the news

source: GDELT

Tax breaks & subsidies

source: Good Jobs First / GASB 77

These tax breaks are recorded to Amazon.com, Inc. (the operator/parent) and may cover this or other sites — no state names the recipient at the facility level.

Dollar value not disclosed for these records.
  • Texas Qualifying Large Data Center Project ExemptionTax break$0
    State of Texas · granted 2026 · term — yr · source
  • Texas Qualifying Large Data Center Project ExemptionTax break$0
    State of Texas · granted 2026 · term — yr · source
  • Texas Qualifying Large Data Center Project ExemptionTax break$0
    State of Texas · granted 2026 · term — yr · source
  • Texas Qualifying Data Center ExemptionTax break$0
    State of Texas · granted 2024 · term — yr · source
  • Texas Qualifying Data Center ExemptionTax break$0
    State of Texas · granted 2021 · term — yr · source
  • Texas Qualifying Data Center ExemptionTax break$0
    State of Texas · granted 2021 · term — yr · source
  • Texas Qualifying Data Center ExemptionTax break$0
    State of Texas · granted 2021 · term — yr · source
Statewide cost of this incentive

Texas reported $16.1M in Property used in certain large data center projects; temporary exemption (Texas Tax Code § 151.3595) for FY2025 (Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts). Program-wide, not attributable to this site.

source · All Texas subsidies →

Water use

No public record of this facility's water use. We check state withdrawal reporting for self-supplied sites; municipally supplied sites only become visible through a public-records request to the local water utility — a per-facility request tool is coming. If you have a utility document for this site, send it to us.

EPA permits & violations

source: EPA ECHO

No reported violations as of last sync.

Nearest school

source: HIFLD / NCES

The nearest public school, Foster El in Riesel, is 0.3 mi from this site (329 students). 2 public schools sit within a mile of the site.

Schools are sensitive receptors for the noise, backup-generator exhaust, and traffic a large data center brings. Straight-line distance to the nearest public school (HIFLD/NCES, US public schools only).

Hearings timeline

No public-hearing records linked to this site yet. We surface planning-commission and board-of-supervisors dates when a record names a facility. If you know of a hearing on this site, tell us.

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