Fermi America
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Fermi America is a United States power and data center developer attempting to build what it calls the world's largest energy and computing complex, an 11 gigawatt (GW) campus near Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. The company was co-founded in January 2025 by Rick Perry, the former United States Secretary of Energy and Governor of Texas, together with the private equity investor Toby Neugebauer and Perry's son Griffin Perry. Its flagship development, branded the HyperGrid and formally named Project Matador (and marketed as the "President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus"), is planned to combine natural gas, nuclear, solar, and battery storage in a single behind-the-meter system dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The parent company, Fermi Inc., is organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT) and raised about $682.5 million in an October 2025 initial public offering (IPO), listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker FRMI. As of mid-2026 the project remained almost entirely pre-construction: the company reported no operating revenue, had not announced a signed anchor tenant, and its stock had fallen more than 80 percent from its first-day price amid a public boardroom fight. (Fermi America is a private commercial venture and is unrelated to Fermilab, the U.S. federal physics laboratory, and to the physicist Enrico Fermi.)
Rick Perry served as Governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015, the longest gubernatorial tenure in the state's history, and as U.S. Secretary of Energy from 2017 to 2019 under President Donald Trump. Toby Neugebauer is a private equity investor who co-founded Quantum Energy Partners; he is the son of former U.S. Representative Randy Neugebauer of Texas. Griffin Perry, Rick Perry's son and a former private equity executive, is the third co-founder and, according to IPO disclosures, holds a larger personal stake than his father.
The company was incorporated in January 2025 and launched publicly in June 2025, with a formal unveiling staged on July 4, 2025 alongside the Texas Tech University System. Neugebauer served as chief executive officer, while Perry took the role of co-founder and a board member; Marius Haas chaired the board at the time of the IPO. The company's stated pitch, in Perry's words, was that the United States is "behind" in the AI race and that "we need to be doing everything in our power to win." Fermi positioned itself within a wave of giant AI power and data center projects, comparable in ambition to efforts such as Stargate, and it leaned heavily on the Trump administration's push to fast-track nuclear and energy permitting.
Project Matador occupies roughly 5,800 acres in Carson County, just east of Amarillo, on land leased from the Texas Tech University System under a 99-year ground lease. (Fermi's IPO prospectus cited about 5,236 acres; later company and press figures have ranged up to roughly 5,855 acres as the footprint was described.) The site sits next to the federal Pantex Plant, the nation's primary nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility, atop the gas-rich Anadarko Basin and near major interstate pipelines. Fermi cites this location as giving it cheap land, abundant low-cost natural gas, and proximity to nuclear and energy workforce expertise.
The company describes the campus as a private, behind-the-meter "HyperGrid" that would generate most of its own electricity rather than draw primarily from the public Texas grid run by ERCOT, an arrangement intended to deliver gigawatt-scale power to tenants in months rather than the years a conventional grid interconnection can take. Fermi has said the campus would ultimately host about 18 million square feet of data center space and deliver up to 11 GW of power, which the company equates to enough electricity for more than 8 million homes. Those data halls would be filled with AI accelerators such as those from NVIDIA, and Fermi is courting hyperscale cloud and AI firms, the category that includes operators such as Microsoft, as prospective tenants. The Texas Tech University System is a partner: it owns the land and is to provide workforce training, research, internships, and employment across its institutions. Texas Tech Chancellor Tedd Mitchell described it as "the largest energy and data complex of its kind."
Fermi's stated plan layers four generation sources behind the meter. Company materials have described a target mix of roughly 50 percent natural gas, 40 to 45 percent nuclear, and the remainder solar and battery storage, supplemented by a modest grid tie. Importantly, almost all of these figures are company-stated plans or regulatory applications rather than operating assets.
| Source | Original 11 GW plan (company-stated) | Upsized projection (2026) | Status as of mid-2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Natural gas | roughly 5 to 6 GW | up to 11 GW | TCEQ preliminary air-permit approval for the first 6 GW; an additional 5 GW permit filed |
| Nuclear (4x Westinghouse AP1000) | up to about 4.4 GW | up to about 4.4 GW | Combined License Application filed with the NRC; units targeted for roughly 2031 to 2038 |
| Solar plus battery storage | remainder (about 1 to 2 GW) | about 1 to 2 GW | planned |
| Campus total | up to 11 GW | up to about 17 GW | mostly pre-construction |
The near-term backbone is natural gas. Fermi has signed turbine arrangements across multiple suppliers, including a non-binding letter of intent with Siemens Energy for up to 1.1 GW of capacity and orders for GE Vernova machines, among them roughly 114 MW of GE Vernova FR6B units and mobile GE TM2500 aeroderivative generators. The company reported securing more than 2 GW of long lead-time generation equipment. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) granted preliminary approval of the first roughly 6 GW gas permit in November 2025, and the air permit advanced through 2026; Fermi then filed for an additional 5 GW, raising its stated campus projection to about 17 GW of private power.
For the nuclear component, Fermi filed a Combined License Application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors totaling up to about 4.4 GW. Notably, Fermi chose large, already-licensed AP1000 units rather than the small modular reactors favored by newer entrants such as Oklo, Kairos Power, and TerraPower. That places Fermi alongside utility-scale nuclear operators such as Constellation Energy in betting on large reactors to serve AI demand, although no AP1000 has been ordered in the United States since the long-delayed and over-budget Vogtle units in Georgia. Company and press estimates put first reactor operation no earlier than about 2031, with all four units potentially complete around 2038, well after the gas and solar phases.
Fermi Inc. completed its IPO on October 1, 2025, listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker FRMI, with a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange on October 2 that the company billed as the first simultaneous Nasdaq and LSE dual listing of the century. The deal priced 32.5 million shares at $21 each (above an initial plan of 25 million shares marketed at $18 to $22 to raise $500 million), for gross proceeds of about $682.5 million and an IPO valuation near $12.5 billion. Shares jumped on debut, and by mid-October 2025 the market capitalization had reached roughly $16 billion to $19 billion despite the company having zero revenue. Joint bookrunners included UBS, Evercore ISI, Cantor, and Mizuho.
| Item | Figure | Date or note |
|---|---|---|
| IPO shares and price | 32.5 million shares at $21 | priced September 30, 2025 |
| IPO gross proceeds | about $682.5 million | October 2025 |
| IPO valuation | about $12.5 billion | October 2025 |
| Peak market capitalization | roughly $16 to $19 billion | October 2025 |
| Market capitalization | under $3.2 billion | April 21, 2026 |
| Estimated total project cost | $70 billion to $90 billion | company and press estimates |
| Project-specific financing negotiated | about $4 billion | late 2025 |
| Lost first-tenant construction advance | up to $150 million | disclosed December 12, 2025 |
The IPO drew skepticism even as it priced. Morningstar analyst Travis Miller warned that "investors are taking a big risk to value a company like this with no revenue and limited assets," characterizing the company as essentially "a lease on very cheap land in Texas." Beyond the IPO proceeds, Fermi has said it negotiated roughly $4 billion in project-specific financing and that it is in the "pre-approval" stage with the U.S. Department of Energy's loan office, which it hopes will help finance key energy infrastructure. Total project cost has been estimated by the company and observers at $70 billion to $90 billion. Fermi has also referenced additional project-level funding from financial partners, though several of those figures rest on limited disclosure.
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| January 2025 | Fermi incorporated |
| June 2025 | Company launches publicly |
| July 4, 2025 | Project Matador / HyperGrid unveiled with Texas Tech |
| Mid-2025 | NRC Combined License Application filed for four AP1000 units |
| October 1, 2025 | Fermi Inc. IPO on Nasdaq (FRMI) |
| November 2025 | TCEQ preliminary approval of the first 6 GW gas permit |
| December 12, 2025 | First prospective tenant withdraws an up-to-$150M construction advance; stock falls more than 30 percent that day |
| March 2026 | Air permit advances; Fermi files for an additional 5 GW, raising projection to about 17 GW |
| April 17 to 30, 2026 | Neugebauer removed as CEO, then terminated for cause |
| Targeted end of 2026 | First power (company target about 1 GW) |
| Targeted 2031 to 2038 | Nuclear units online |
As of mid-2026 Fermi had broken ground on site work but had not announced a signed anchor tenant, and it has never built or operated a power plant or data center. In its IPO materials the company targeted roughly 1.1 GW of power online by the end of 2026, but a first-quarter 2026 update pointed to far more modest near-term additions, including an 86 MW interconnection with Xcel Energy and about 114 MW of GE Vernova turbines in the fourth quarter of 2026, with cumulative capacity of up to 1.5 GW by the end of 2027 contingent on signed tenants. In December 2025 Fermi disclosed that its first prospective tenant had walked away from an advance-in-aid-of-construction agreement worth up to $150 million after the letter of intent's exclusivity period lapsed; the stock fell more than 30 percent on the news. The company said it expected to stay on schedule and continued to report active discussions with hyperscalers and other compute operators.
The company's governance imploded in 2026. After the share price fell roughly 80 percent from its IPO debut, the board removed Toby Neugebauer as president and CEO on April 17, 2026, and a committee of independent directors terminated his employment for cause on April 30, citing material misrepresentations to the board, conduct violating his fiduciary and non-disclosure duties, unauthorized meetings with third parties, and a pattern of abusive behavior. Neugebauer, who with allied shareholders claims voting power over roughly 40 percent of the company, says he was fired "without cause" and has pushed for an immediate sale to "make money for all shareholders." A board majority, led by chairman Marius Haas, publicly opposed a sale, arguing it "is not in the best interest of its continued momentum on Project Matador." The dispute moved toward a shareholder special meeting expected around June 30, 2026, with the company's market capitalization having fallen to under $3.2 billion by late April 2026.
The project has also drawn organized environmental and community opposition. Critics including the Sierra Club and the MediaJustice coalition, citing Fermi's own air-permit application, say the campus would install roughly 90 gas turbines totaling about 6,000 MW, which they argue would rank among the largest gas-fired generating sites in the United States, emitting on the order of 23.6 million tons of greenhouse gases and more than 1,000 tons of fine particulate matter per year, while consuming several billion gallons of water annually. The TCEQ permitting process drew hundreds of public comments, the bulk in opposition, along with dozens of requests for a contested case hearing; opponents allege gaps in the permit's pollution-control requirements and modeling. Industry observers have likewise questioned the plan's feasibility, with Data Center Dynamics publishing a skeptical column titled "Fermi's paradox" about a permitted campus with no anchor tenant.
In sum, Fermi America is a real, publicly traded company pursuing an unusually large and well-connected AI energy project, but as of mid-2026 the 11 GW (and later 17 GW) HyperGrid remains a stated plan rather than an operating system. Its claimed capacities, timelines, and homes-powered equivalents are company projections and regulatory applications, not delivered facts, and the venture's near-term viability is clouded by a stock collapse, a leadership feud, the loss of its first prospective tenant, and contested environmental permits. The project's heavy reliance on natural gas and large nuclear reactors also makes it a notable case study in the broader debate over AI energy consumption and how to power the AI build-out.