Would Anyone Still Oppose a Data Center Disguised in the Forest?

San Antonio data centers grow from 2000s offices to about 20 hyperscale AI facilities

Meta description: San Antonio data centers grew from 2000s office buildings to hyperscale AI facilities; Ric Galvan expects about 20 in his 55-square-mile district.

Tags: San Antonio data centers, hyperscale AI facilities, Ric Galvan, AI infrastructure, urban tech development

Featured image: abstract technology style, no real people, no company logos, no text, showing server clusters and network lines over a city grid

San Antonio data centers are moving from modest office-like buildings that first appeared in the 2000s to very large hyperscale sites supporting AI's physical infrastructure. San Antonio City Councilmember Ric Galvan describes a timeline that now places more than a dozen centers in his roughly 55-square-mile district, with the number expected to reach around 20 over the next few years if proposed projects are completed. The story matters because AI infrastructure is becoming a local land-use issue, not only a distant cloud-computing topic. The shift also explains why a technology story can become a city-management story: large facilities arrive with fixed locations, access needs, and long-term neighborhood effects.

2000s: The quiet arrival
According to Galvan, data centers first arrived in San Antonio in the 2000s. At that point, they resembled modest office-like buildings rather than a separate infrastructure class. Their footprint was easier to absorb into ordinary commercial settings, and the facilities were not yet widely read by nearby streets as the physical base of modern AI workloads.

Recent years: The hyperscale shift
The character changed in recent years. Galvan describes data centers that have grown into very large hyperscale facilities covering millions of square feet and supporting AI's physical infrastructure. The difference is scale: a facility of that size cannot be understood only as an office building. It becomes a visible technology site with a footprint large enough to shape neighborhood expectations, road access, and local scrutiny.

Next few years: From more than a dozen to around 20
The current count is more than a dozen data centers inside Galvan's roughly 55-square-mile district. He expects the number to rise to around 20 over the next few years if proposed projects are completed. That projection gives the timeline a measurable endpoint: a district that once absorbed scattered 2000s-era facilities may now host a much denser set of hyperscale AI sites. For readers, the key question is whether growth is distributed across the city or compressed into particular corridors.

Current stage: Concentration along two main roads
The present pattern shows the centers clustered along two main roads, concentrating nuisances in the same neighborhoods. Traffic is one named burden, and the account leaves other local impacts open. This clustering is where the story becomes concrete: residents may experience AI infrastructure not through server counts or benchmark headlines, but through repeated vehicle movement, street pressure, and the visual weight of hyperscale buildings near their homes.

What to watch is completion of proposed projects. If they proceed, the district may move from more than a dozen centers to around 20 while still facing a two-road clustering. The timeline ends in the present: San Antonio data centers are no longer 2000s office buildings, but the scale of hyperscale AI infrastructure is still being mapped onto streets, neighborhoods, and local planning assumptions. This makes the district one example of how AI infrastructure can reshape local streets.