OPINION: The desert’s techno-fascist takeover

In 2025, we have witnessed the rise of the techno-fascist takeover — one rapidly reshaping energy systems, data centers on which artificial intelligence (AI) and technology depend, and financial power. In New Mexico, this is justified as “economic development,” “prosperity” and “progress.” But beneath these hollow promises lies a far more dangerous truth: New Mexico is once again being positioned as a sacrifice zone for the next phase of corporate power.

New Mexico’s corporate-led development is unfolding alongside a broader federal push to hand critical infrastructure to private equity. This is driven by the same corrupt political logic that treats New Mexico’s land, water and people as expendable — while systematically cutting avenues of accountability.

So why are the world’s most powerful corporations suddenly fixated on our desert? Big Tech giants like OpenAI, Wall Street investors like Blackstone and Bernard Capital Partners are looking to make large investments in New Mexico. What they see in New Mexico is not community — it’s opportunity. Cheap land. Weak regulation. Political leaders willing to trade finite natural resources for corporate investment tied to the AI boom.

In the energy sector, data centers, carbon capture and storage are being framed as lifelines for small rural communities. We’re told they will bring jobs and “prosperity.” In reality, they bring relentless energy demand and extreme water use in a state already facing a megadrought. Infrastructure built not for New Mexicans but for AI systems that run day and night — while our utility bills climb.

Project Jupiter in Doña Ana County is a glaring example. This AI mega-development, tied to OpenAI-scale computing, threatens long-term water and energy security in a region already overburdened. Residents were sidelined in the approval process, denied free, prior and informed consent, and forced to organize and litigate just to be heard. To understand why projects like Project Jupiter keep advancing, we must follow the power behind them. In May of 2025, Blackstone announced its plan to purchase PNM and TXNM Energy for $11.5 billion. This follows the proposed $1.25 billion acquisition of New Mexico Gas Company by Bernhard Capital Partners. Together, these takeovers position private equity to dictate New Mexico’s energy future — deciding whose energy needs are prioritized, how utility rates are set and which communities are served or sacrificed.

To meet the massive, constant demands of data centers, false solutions are being dragged back into the conversation — coal plant life extensions, new nuclear investments and carbon capture and storage. These technologies do not represent a transition. They prolong dependence on fossil fuels.

This is techno-facism in practice — concentrated corporate power shaping our public systems, eroding democracy and using technology as both a shield and justification. AI becomes the excuse. “Energy security” becomes the cover.

The convergence of Big Tech, private equity and Big Oil points to one goal: turning New Mexico into an energy colony to support the rise of techno-fascism.

New Mexico knows this story all too well. From uranium mining to nuclear testing, to oil and gas extraction, our state has long been treated as a sacrifice zone for national ambition and corporate greed. AI is simply the newest chapter of New Mexico’s colonial legacy. The question now is whether policymakers will allow Wall Street and Silicon Valley to decide how our water and land are used — or whether our communities will finally be the leaders in shaping New Mexico’s future.

New Mexico is a place of resistance. A just transition cannot be built on deeper extraction, and New Mexico’s future cannot be surrendered to someone else’s machine. Our desert is done absorbing corporate violence. It’s time to meet techno-fascist takeovers with organized resistance.

New Mexico is not for sale!

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Ennedith Lopez is an environmental justice organizer at Los Jardines Institute, a member of the New Mexico No False Solutions Coalition. Feleecia Guillen is an organizer with New Mexico No False Solutions and the New Mexico fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies.