$5 billion tech campus project to bring 1,000 jobs to New Mexico

SANTA FE — Despite federal import tariffs on Mexican goods on track to take effect soon, New Mexico is still forging full steam ahead in strengthening global trade relations.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with BorderPlex Digital Assets, which aims to create its first “digital infrastructure campus” in Santa Teresa. One of the end goals is to support global trade through the Mexico-neighboring campus comprised of advanced manufacturing, data centers and infrastructure.

The partnership could bring 1,000 jobs to New Mexico and boost the region’s tax base, a news release states, and BorderPlex projects $5 billion in construction spending over the next decade. BorderPlex plans to break ground on its infrastructure campus this year and begin operations next year, according to the MOU.

Discussions are ongoing with state officials about obtaining financial incentives like industrial revenue bonds and Local Economic Development Act, or LEDA, money.

“I’ve always lived by a little bit of a mission and purpose. That mission and purpose is, I think business is about creating jobs and opportunity for those of us that are blessed to be able to live in this country, to be able to work on this type of infrastructure,” said Lanham Napier, chair of BorderPlex Digital Assets.

The campus seeks power and water independence through the creation of a microgrid, which doesn’t rely on the region’s main electric grid, and potential desalination projects to treat and reuse saline water from New Mexico’s underground basins.

“When we look at that Santa Teresa market, all the right ingredients are there to get going,” Napier said.

He described the border region as a national asset and said trade won’t stop as a result of President Donald Trump’s planning to implement 25% import tariffs on Mexico, which Trump said Monday are set to take effect in April. Napier added that the border needs investment, something New Mexico can lead the way in.

“We’re playing a long-term game,” he said.

Lujan Grisham said “stability factors” — components like the brackish water reuse or microgrid capabilities — not hugely affected by the tariffs are a good place to start for the campus while the federal administration pursues tactics she said will have a “chilling effect” on international trade. This way, she said, New Mexico has a head start “as soon as the door opens in a productive way again.”

And, she said, Mexico is also very interested in “innovation, energy, brackish water, and they have to do their own data center work.”

“Even when the challenges can seem overwhelming, we succeed in spite of those things,” the governor added.

Senate Majority Whip Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, said the Legislature is considering a few key bills to help with the BorderPlex partnership — one on getting sites shovel-ready for development and a few on advancing the state’s quantum technology opportunities.

“We want to make sure that every time Lanham gets off the airplane, we’re ready to receive him,” Padilla said.

Strategic water supply

The governor has been vocal in urging the Legislature to pass a Strategic Water Supply Act, something that would allow the state to grant money or contracts to projects that treat and reuse alternative water resources — in this case, brackish water.

The MOU is another way to pursue water commercialization.

BorderPlex will work with New Mexico State University, which has specialties in water treatment and reuse, and EPCOR, a private water provider, to explore water desalination project opportunities, according to the MOU.

State money could make that even easier to roll out if the governor gets the $75 million she’s seeking for her Strategic Water Supply Act.

The state could award funds or enter into contracts with projects that involve the reuse of brackish water. The MOU with BorderPlex states that New Mexico intends to either contribute state funds to BorderPlex’s pilot desalination and water treatment project in Santa Teresa or support a cost subsidy creation for the company’s brackish water projects.

“We’re going to start at business-scale levels for brackish water using the best technology and innovation the world has to offer,” Lujan Grisham said.