By Nate Wolf

Texas Pacific Land was the top performer in the S&P 500 on Wednesday after the landowner moved one step closer to putting large-scale data centers in the middle of the West Texas desert.

The company announced an agreement with the artificial-intelligence infrastructure company Bolt Data & Energy to develop data-center campuses on Texas Pacific's property. As part of the deal, Bolt raised $150 million of capital, with Texas Pacific investing $50 million. Texas Pacific will receive an equity interest in Bolt, warrants, and a right of first refusal to supply water to Bolt-affiliated projects.

Texas Pacific stock jumped 8.3% on Wednesday. It joined the S&P 500 in November 2024.

Bolt, whose chairman is former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, currently is pursuing customers and commercial partnerships to develop the data centers, the companies said.

Texas Pacific isn't your typical AI play. The company is the corporate successor to the Texas Pacific Land Trust, which was formed in 1888. With 882,000 acres of land concentrated in the arid, petroleum-rich Permian Basin, the company is one of the largest landowners in Texas. It makes money from water services, oil and gas royalties, and leases and sales.

Chatter about the company's potential to host data centers on its vast acreage picked up late last year, sending the stock soaring in October and November. The thesis was that Texas Pacific's land provided easy access to water services and cheap power.

Interest in the stock waned in 2025 -- shares have fallen more than 20% this year -- but the announcement Wednesday may reignite the dream of data centers in the desert.

"We believe West Texas has the attributes necessary to become one of the largest concentrations of AI compute infrastructure globally," said Texas Pacific CEO Ty Glover. "Combined with TPL's ownership of nearly one million acres, our collaboration with Bolt is designed to help realize that opportunity."

LandBridge, a new competitor which also has bought up land in the Permian Basin, has made a similar pitch to investors about getting data centers set up on its acreage. LandBridge rose 3.2%.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com

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December 17, 2025 11:03 ET (16:03 GMT)

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