South Korea Bets $22.3 Billion on Texas Gas Plant to Fuel AI Surge

South Korea and the United States have agreed to a $22.3 billion investment in a large natural gas-fired power plant in Encinal, Texas, described as the first concrete project under a broader $350 billion framework reached last year. The plant will be built in phases: an initial 1.4 GW of simple gas turbine capacity, followed by expansion to 4.9 GW of combined-cycle generation, with timing dependent on demand and project economics. The main driver is rising electricity demand from AI data centers across Texas, where U.S. estimates project data center power could reach 123 GW annually by 2028. A nearby data center complex could secure long-term power purchase agreements.