Oracle’s AI Data Center Waits On New Mexico To Approve The Power It Promised To Bring

Oracle is preparing for possible delays at its New Mexico artificial intelligence data center as state officials have yet to approve its power supply.

The company sent the developer of its Project Jupiter campus a notice that would let Oracle delay payments if the campus misses its 2028 target to come online, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The New Mexico Environment Department has not appointed a new independent hearing officer for the air quality permit covering the campus’s gas-powered fuel cells, department communications director Drew Goretzka told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The previous officer recused himself in August, Source NM reported.

Goretzka said the new officer will set the hearing schedule once appointed and that Nov. 23 remains the department’s deadline for a permit decision.

Oracle said in a statement to CNBC that “Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule.” Blue Owl Capital, whose unit is developing the campus and received the notice, told the outlet it does not change the financial commitments to the project.

Oracle also removed BorderPlex Digital Assets, one of the project’s land and power partners, from the development, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Oracle was one of seven technology companies that signed President Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge on March 4, committing to build, bring or buy all the power their data centers need and to pay its full cost, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in a July 23 release.

“The whole point of the Ratepayer Protection Pledge is that if you bring your own power, you can just do that,” Chris Johnson, president of the American Energy Leadership Institute, told the DCNF.

Johnson said that requiring companies to get permission from a governor or regulator after they have committed to supplying and paying for their own power “just seems like fundamentally un-American.”