New Era Energy & Digital Reports Major Development Milestones and Expanded Readiness at its TCDC AI Data Center Campus

Key Terms

final investment decision financial

A final investment decision is the point at which a person or organization chooses to move forward with a particular project or purchase after reviewing all the necessary information and options. It is like deciding to buy a house after considering all the costs, benefits, and alternatives. This decision is important because it determines whether and when the investment will be made, impacting future financial plans and outcomes.

fid financial

A Final Investment Decision (FID) is the formal approval by a company or project partners to commit the money and contracts needed to build and operate a major project, such as a factory, mine, pipeline, or energy plant. For investors it’s a clear signal that the project is considered bankable and will move from planning to construction and spending, which affects future cash flow, construction risk and the company’s capital needs—like a family signing a mortgage to start building a house.

arr financial

ARR, or Annual Recurring Revenue, is the predictable income a business expects to earn each year from ongoing customer subscriptions or contracts. It’s like a steady paycheck that shows the company's ability to generate consistent revenue over time, helping investors assess its stability and growth potential. ARR provides a clear picture of how well a company is performing in building long-term customer relationships.

hyperscaler technical

A hyperscaler is a very large provider of cloud computing and data-center services that owns and operates vast amounts of servers, storage and network capacity to host other companies’ applications and data. Think of them as the electric utility for digital services: their scale cuts unit costs, enables rapid growth for customers, and creates high barriers to entry, so investors watch their market share, margins and capital spending closely.

MIDLAND, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUAI) (“New Era” or the “Company”), a developer and operator of next-generation digital infrastructure and integrated power assets in the Permian Basin, today announced significant progress across engineering, commercial, and regulatory workstreams at its Texas Critical Data Centers (“TCDC”) campus, its 50/50 joint venture with Sharon AI, Inc. TCDC is the Company’s flagship AI data center and power development project spanning a planned 438 acre site in Ector County near Odessa, Texas.

Foundational Site & Engineering Progress
New Era has advanced key early-stage development activities at the TCDC campus designed to scale well beyond 1 GW establishing the physical groundwork and engineering readiness required to move into the construction phase. These milestones accelerate TCDC’s path toward shovel-ready status.

• Soil sampling underway, enabling final foundation and structural engineering.
• Site clearing underway, with earthwork beginning this week.
• Drone documentation scheduled, providing transparent, verifiable construction updates.
• Ongoing civil planning and interconnection studies to support multi-gigawatt scalability.

Regulatory & Municipal Enablement
The Company has engaged specialized legal counsel to establish an Industrial District with the City of Odessa, which will unlock access to municipal water, wastewater services and support the infrastructure required for large-scale AI data-center operations. This framework materially de-risks utility availability supporting future phases and positions TCDC for efficient long-term operations over the lifespan of the data center.

Commercial & Partnership Progress
New Era continues to build commercial depth and strength through its disciplined, partnership-driven development model, central to the Company’s positioning as a pick-and-ax developer supporting the emerging frontier tech ecosystem. Key progress includes:

• Negotiations are underway with a leading hyperscaler on a long-term NNN lease for a powered-shell deployment, while commercial discussions with additional prospective tenants continue to advance.
• Working with multiple modular data-center manufacturers to control costs, mitigate labor constraints and ensure rapid, repeatable end-to-end delivery that can be scaled across a future portfolio of planned data center projects.

Roadmap to FID, Revenue, and Phase I Delivery
With commercial negotiations, engineering activities, and site development progressing in parallel, New Era expects to reach a Final Investment Decision (FID) by the end of Q1 2026 providing for Phase I delivery, the onset of initial revenue generation, and the foundation for longer-term multi-year ARR expansion.

• Phase I will be energized starting Q1 through Q4 2027 .
• Revenue expected to begin at construction commencement, consistent with standard industry developer economics.
• ARR expectations are being finalized and will be communicated once tenant sizing and commercial structures are confirmed.

E. Will Gray II, CEO of New Era Energy & Digital, commented: “We are systematically de-risking the ground through disciplined engineering and early site work, and securing the long-term utilities that will anchor multi-gigawatt scalability. At the same time, we are encouraged by ongoing negotiations with leading hyperscalers which validate demand for our project and reinforce our position as a premier location at the forefront of the frontier tech landscape in West Texas. With clear accountability at every stage of the project life cycle, we are optimizing capital efficiency to capture speed and scale. Equally important, we continue to strengthen the economic framework of TCDC with a defined transparent path to FID, giving investors a clear line of sight from planning to execution to ARR. This collaborative integrated framework defines the New Era model and enables a scalable, repeatable platform for AI infrastructure deployment.”

About New Era Energy & Digital, Inc.
New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUAI) is a developer and operator of next-generation digital infrastructure and integrated power assets. With a growing portfolio of strategically located, vertically integrated resources including powered land and powered shells, the Company delivers turnkey solutions that enable hyperscale, enterprise, and edge operators to accelerate data center deployment, optimize total cost of ownership, and future-proof its infrastructure investments. For more information, visit: www.newerainfra.ai, and follow New Era Energy & Digital on LinkedIn and X.

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Source: New Era Energy & Digital, Inc.