Bitcoin miners’ AI pipelines are on trial as Texas freezes 474 GW of data center requests

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to audit every data center project seeking a grid connection before regulators approve any new projects. The order puts AI infrastructure tied to Bitcoin miners under scrutiny, while the audit verifies each project's power sourcing, water use, cooling plans, and ownership.The order covers roughly 474 GW of pending connection requests, and Abbott said about 90% of that demand comes from data centers.That figure runs more than five times the grid's record peak load. ERCOT paused its Batch Zero transmission-planning study once the order landed, and a separate PUCT survey shows that only 28 of 377 companies responded when asked about their data center plans.Public Bitcoin miners have spent the past year pitching investors on multi-gigawatt AI infrastructure pipelines.Those numbers can bundle very different assets under one label, such as raw land near a substation, a queue position still waiting on interconnection studies, and a financed campus already under construction.Texas just forced a test of that distinction, and FERC is building a matching one at the national level.Pipeline labelWhat it may actually meanRisk...