Garcia: Why Data Ownership Is Critical for the Future of the Rio Grande Valley

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As the digital world continues to expand, the foundation of every major decision we make—from government policy to business strategy—is increasingly driven by one thing: data.

At the heart of this new frontier are data centers: large facilities that store, manage, and process massive volumes of information. These centers are the power plants of the digital age. They fuel everything from your social media scroll to the emergency response systems that keep your family safe.

But here’s the big question for the Rio Grande Valley: Will we own our own data future—or will someone else own it for us?

What Is a Data Center—and Why Should We Care?

A data center is a secure facility where computing infrastructure is housed to manage digital information. Think of it as a central nervous system for the digital world—it stores your city’s utility usage data, your hospital’s electronic health records, your school district’s test scores, and your small business’s customer insights.

These centers are critical infrastructure—just as important as roads, electricity, and water systems. Without them, we’re simply users of technology built and owned by others. And that’s exactly the issue.

What It Takes to Build and Sustain a Data Center

Building a data center isn’t just about stacking servers in a room. It requires:

Strong internet bandwidth and fiber infrastructure
Stable and scalable power sources
Secure facilities with temperature and disaster controls
Workforce capable of managing and analyzing data

This isn’t a one-and-done construction project. It’s a complete shift in how our region thinks about infrastructure, energy, and digital capability. If we’re not investing in this shift now, we risk falling behind for decades to come.

Ownership Is Everything: The Risks of Falling Behind

Here’s the hard truth: if outside corporations or investors come in and build data centers on our land, they will own the data.

That means they control the insight, they dictate access, and they profit off information that should belong to our community.

Without data ownership:

We can’t make timely or accurate decisions.
We become dependent on others to understand our own problems.
Our economic power becomes outsourced.
Our community privacy and regional strategies are vulnerable.

We do not want to be data dependent. We want to mine our own data, prepare it on our terms, and access it whenever we need it—especially when facing the unique challenges that define our region.

What Is Data Mining and Why Should We Care?

Data mining is the process of extracting useful insights from large volumes of information. This is where data becomes decision-making power.

In the Rio Grande Valley, data mining could help us with:

Economic Development: Identify where to bring new jobs, investments, and tax incentives based on real-time trends.
Education: Improve student outcomes by identifying performance gaps across neighborhoods and creating tailored intervention programs.
Border Security: Allocate security resources intelligently, track patterns without profiling, and improve safety without sacrificing rights.
City Planning: Use traffic, zoning, and utility data to develop infrastructure where it’s actually needed.
Agriculture: Leverage soil, weather, and irrigation data to increase yields and prepare for climate risks.
Small Business Growth: Understand local buying behaviors to help businesses make smarter marketing and inventory decisions.
Health & Pandemics: Predict outbreaks, deploy resources more efficiently, and understand community health at a granular level.
Flooding & Natural Disasters: Use predictive analytics to strengthen flood preparedness and recovery.
Workforce Development: Align local training programs with the industries and skills that are actually in demand.
Demographics: Monitor population trends to create smarter public policy, outreach programs, and community initiatives.

Without control over this data, our hands are tied. With it, we are empowered.

The Next Big Money Grab: Why Investors Are Moving In

Data centers are already being called the oil fields of the digital economy. Just like land with oil was once a goldmine, land with fiber, power, and space for servers is now prime real estate for the world’s biggest investors.

Big tech companies, hedge funds, and private equity firms are acquiring land across the country—not just to build data centers, but to control the pipelines of tomorrow’s digital gold: data.

If we don’t act now, they will build on our land, control our data, and sell our insights back to us.

We must treat data like a public utility—an asset that belongs to the people, managed for the public good.

A Regional Call to Action: Why This Matters Now

This is about more than technology. It’s about the future of our region, our autonomy, and our economic survival.

The answers to our biggest challenges are already in the data. But only if we have the infrastructure—and the courage—to collect it, own it, and use it wisely.

If you’re a policymaker, business leader, educator, or citizen of the Rio Grande Valley, this is your call to think long-term.

Advocate for public-private partnerships that prioritize community ownership of data infrastructure.
Support legislation that ensures local control over data generated in our region.
Invest in the infrastructure—fiber, power, and workforce development—that makes data centers sustainable here.
Create training programs to equip our youth with the skills needed to manage and secure this infrastructure.
Collaborate with local governments and universities to develop data strategies for public benefit.

Final Word: Own the Data, Shape the Future

The Rio Grande Valley is no stranger to resilience and innovation. We’ve overcome economic, environmental, and social hurdles because of our grit and our people.

Now, we face a digital test of equal importance.

If we don’t own our data, we don’t own our decisions. If we don’t own our decisions, we don’t own our future.

Let’s not let someone else tell our story, manage our challenges, or profit from our potential.

Let’s build data centers that belong to us—by us, for us.

Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Andy Garcia, president of Allied Consulting Group, Texas. The column first appeared on Garcia’s social media pages. It appears in the Guardian with the permission of the author. Garcia can be reached by email via: andy@alliedconsultinggroup.com.

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