CFE, MEXDC Establish Power Planning for Data Centers

The CFE and the industry will work proactively to identify the energy and infrastructure needs of new data centers in Mexico. Permanent technical working groups will be established to analyze load requirements and define the necessary electrical solutions for each project.

Mexico is moving to address one of the most immediate constraints facing its expanding data center industry: ensuring that new facilities can secure the electricity required to operate and scale. Under this context, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and the Mexican Data Center Association (MEXDC) agreed to establish a joint coordination framework designed to anticipate the energy requirements of new data center projects and align infrastructure planning with industry growth.

The agreement comes as Mexico’s data center industry reports 279MW of installed capacity, with another 205MW under construction in 2026. By 2031, the sector expects to require 1.73GW of capacity, increasing the importance of planning generation, transmission, distribution, and storage before new projects come online. The agreement addresses a challenge that extends beyond the construction of data center facilities. As AI and cloud workloads increase computing density, developers need power availability, grid stability and expansion capacity to match the pace of infrastructure deployment.

From Power Availability to Infrastructure Planning

The CFE-MEXDC framework is based on the premise that Mexico has sufficient electricity to support data center growth, provided that the sector's future requirements are identified and incorporated into infrastructure planning ahead of demand. Under the agreement, MEXDC will share consolidated information with CFE about upcoming projects, expected growth and consumption profiles. This information will allow technical teams to anticipate load requirements and determine the electrical solutions needed according to each project's characteristics and location.

The coordination will cover generation, transmission, distribution, and storage, creating a framework for addressing projects according to their regional infrastructure requirements. 

Electricity can determine whether a data center project moves from investment planning to operation. At Mexico Connect 2026, industry executives described power delivery as one of the central physical constraints to the country's AI infrastructure expansion.

Hector Sanchez, Director of Operations, Equinix, said the immediate challenge is not necessarily the ability to construct a facility, but whether sufficient power will be available when it is ready to operate. “Right now anyone can build 1MW or 8MW; the issue is that the power is not available, you turn on the tap, and nothing comes out,” Sanchez said.

Data center developers require not only an initial electricity allocation but also confidence that capacity will expand as computing demand increases. The new coordination mechanism seeks to address that timing problem by bringing information about future projects into the planning process earlier.

Weekly Technical Coordination

CFE and MEXDC will establish weekly technical meetings to analyze information and statistics, develop growth projections, and monitor individual projects. The agreement also establishes a more localized approach to infrastructure coordination. CFE will identify Distribution personnel responsible for areas where data centers currently operate, allowing projects to have designated points of contact for their regional electricity requirements.

The organizations will also coordinate with other entities in the electricity sector, including the National Energy Control Center (CENACE), when projects require additional procedures or coordination.

The structure is significant because data centers concentrate substantial electricity demand in specific locations. Alejandro Preinfalk, President and CEO, Siemens Mexico, previously described the technological shift behind these facilities as a fundamental change in infrastructure requirements. “Today we call them AI factories to differentiate the concept because the technological requirements are distinct,” Preinfalk said, pointing to increases in energy consumption, power density, and cooling requirements associated with GPU-intensive computing.

That shift makes infrastructure planning increasingly interconnected. Electricity requirements influence where facilities can be built, while transmission and distribution capacity influence when those facilities can become operational.

AI Infrastructure Raises the Stakes

The agreement also arrives as data centers become increasingly important to Mexico's digital economy. These facilities provide the underlying infrastructure for cloud services, AI, and intensive data processing, all of which are increasing demand for computing capacity. Industry executives argue that meeting this demand will require coordination across energy providers, technology companies, regulators, and infrastructure developers.

Alejandro Peón, CEO, Naturgy Mexico, said concentrated industrial demand creates a particular challenge because electricity infrastructure must also serve broader social needs. “The bottleneck is that energy for society is vital for human beings; the government has to ensure that everyone has access to energy,” Peón said. He has also argued that clustering demand could help make larger localized generation projects viable by combining the requirements of multiple users.

For Mexico, the CFE-MEXDC agreement introduces a mechanism to begin that coordination before projects reach the point at which electricity is urgently required. Rather than responding to individual requests as facilities approach operation, the organizations will use project pipelines, consumption profiles, and regional information to anticipate infrastructure requirements.

The objective is therefore broader than connecting individual data centers to the grid. It is to synchronize the expansion of digital infrastructure with the electricity system supporting it.