In Rockdale, the land where Alcoa once smelted aluminum now hosts two of the largest bitcoin mines in the country, side by side. AI tenants are moving in, and OpenAI's Stargate has named Milam County as a site.
Compiled by Grail Systems from news reports and public records. Checked Oct 31, 2026. Corrections welcome.
Riot Platforms, 700 MW, on former Alcoa land. Riot bought about 200 acres it had leased for $96M and signed AMD as an AI tenant. Uses a mix of air and immersion cooling, with a lake water reservation reported at about $2.1M a year.
Spun off from China's Bitmain, less than half a mile from Riot on former Alcoa land.
Named as an OpenAI Stargate site in late 2025. Details are still not public.
Riot begins shifting to AI hosting.
The Alcoa site had the power lines; the miners followed. Compare Lufkin's paper mill and Bon Wier's plywood mill.
A private lake water reservation can bypass the debates residents expect.
Stargate named Milam County with no public details. Watch TDLR filings and the appraisal district.
The Block; Greenpeace USA research; Baxtel; Data Center Dynamics; TechRadar.