Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is getting into the AI and data center race with his new startup, and he’s betting on rural West Texas and a failed railroad turned oil giant to help him build enough power to light up 7 million homes.

Schmidt’s new Bolt Data & Energy is taking the one-stop shop approach for hyperscalers’ land, power, and water needs for their data center campuses. Bolt has teamed up with Texas Pacific Land, a little-known oil and gas player with a long history and a $20 billion market cap that happens to offer 882,000 acres of West Texas land—more acreage than Rhode Island—with easy access to natural gas and renewable energy resources. Oh, and the company just so happens to have its own water services business for oil and gas that can translate to help for thirsty data centers as well.

“Energy is the main constraint in scaling AI. If we want to keep America competitive, we have to solve this problem. Bolt was created to address this challenge,” Schmidt said in an emailed interview with Fortune. “We realized that combining my technical expertise with TPL’s unrivaled land, abundant water, and access to low-cost energy could create the infrastructure needed to meet the virtually infinite demand for compute.”

Having literally co-authored the book on AI—The Age of AI: And Our Human Future, in 2021, a year before the launch of ChatGPT—Schmidt sees the age of AI and advanced robotics as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” He believes data center campus developers such as Bolt are necessary to compete with China in the global AI race.

“Our platform begins with West Texas’ abundant natural gas but is designed to transition to renewable and clean energy, with nuclear power also included in future plans,” Schmidt said. “By integrating land, power generation, and data centers, we can create a scalable, resilient infrastructure capable of meeting the growing global demand for compute. Our goal is to ensure AI develops responsibly, supports American competitiveness, and delivers technology that benefits humanity while minimizing climate impact.”

Schmidt, 70, served as Google’s CEO for a decade, from 2001 to 2011, and then continued as executive chairman of Google and then Alphabet through 2017 and as technical advisor until 2020. He’s stayed plenty busy since, though. He’s also now the CEO of aerospace manufacturer Relatively Space, and cofounder of the non-profit that organizes the AI+ Expo for National Competitiveness.

Schmidt is the chairman of Bolt, and he cofounded it with Investors Todd Meister and Allan Tessler, who is a major investor in Texas Pacific Land. To date, Bolt has raised $150 million in initial capital, with TPL contributing a $50 million investment, including right of first refusal to supply critical water resources to the new data center projects.

“We felt like we wanted to capture more of the value chain than just a land lease or a water contract, so that’s why we actually invested in Bolt,” Texas Pacific Land CEO Ty Glover told . “When you’re looking at who you might want to partner with in a space that you’re not an expert in, then who better than a titan of that industry like Eric Schmidt.”