SoftBank Tied to Detail-Sparse Land Purchase in Milam County

Entities tied to Japanese multinational investment conglomerate SoftBank Group have purchased 4,709 acres in Milam County, but details on what exactly the land will be used for are sparse.

The purchase is within the 33,000-acre former Sandow Lakes Ranch site that includes Alcoa Corporation’s decommissioned aluminum smelter that is being redeveloped by Xebec Holdings, according to the Austin Business Journal. Dallas-based Xebec’s plans for the site include a 3,300-acre campus called The Switch, which is slated to be ready for tenants this year.

It’s not the only property SoftBank is tied to in Texas. The firm also has links to a 280,000 industrial lease in nearby Hutto with no confirmed ties, according to the outlet.

If there’s a new, sweeping land purchase outside of Austin, the betting odds have favored data centers or another Elon Musk venture as of late. The tech mogul and newly anointed richest man in the world is hinting at expanding his Bastrop County facility for the Gigasat, an 11 million-square-foot solar production facility aimed at helping put data centers in space. Musk is also planning a $20 billion plus “Terafab” in Grimes County, and has already built the Tesla car production facility Gigafactory just down the road from the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

SoftBank, however, is partnered with OpenAI, not the Musk xAI company that has offices in Austin. SoftBank-affiliated SB Energy was set to build and operate OpenAI’s Stargate 1.2 gigawatt data center in Milam County with a $1 billion joint investment into the company. In late 2025, SoftBank also acquired DigitalBridge, a data center investment firm, for $4 billion.

The data center building spree has been met with intense local pushback in Texas, including from surprising places such as the usually anti-regulation tendencies of Gov. Greg Abbott. Abbott recommended blanket regulations for future data center developments, including requiring them to fund their own grid interconnection and eliminating sales tax exemptions.

— Hunter Cooke