Turkish shipbuilder plans $3B investment to build ‘floating data centers’ and more at Port of Brownsville

There’s a new owner at the helm of an industrial shipyard at the Port of Brownsville with plans to produce the next generation of vessels, from floating data centers to power plants, fueled by liquified natural gas, or LNG. 

Turkish shipbuilder Karadeniz Holdings, through its American subsidiary Karpower Valley Inc., purchased the former Singapore-based Seatrium AmFELS shipyard in a $50.6 million deal, which closed in January. 

Now Karpower Valley Inc. plans to spend $3 billion on renovations and construction as it expands and upgrades the site, which has been used for shipbuilding for decades. 

The Brownsville Navigation District Board of Commissioners approved transferring the old AmFELS lease of 136 acres to Karpower Valley in December 2025. 

“Karpower intends to use the leased premises for the purposes of building and repairing marine structures, such as jackups, rigs, platforms, topsides, and other modules, as well as steel type work and other related activities, and to put the leased premises at the forefront of its ambitious growing activities across relevant sectors, such as ship building, manufacturing strategic power generation equipment, building floating power plants and key floating infrastructures, such as floating data centers,” the meeting minutes said. 

Karpower Valley expects to create at least 1,500 jobs during operations and up to 2,500 during expansion and renovations, according to records from the port meeting. The company also expects to generate 21.4 gigawatts of new power generation capacity in the U.S. market by 2031 — an investment worth $70 billion. 

There are also plans to build a 1-gigawatt power plant operated by Karpower Valley within the Port of Brownsville to support the company’s operations and enable expansion to 2 gigawatts. 

“Karpower Valley is a first-of-its-kind industrial power and technology hub designed to deliver speed, scale, and certainty to America’s growing energy demand,” its new website states. 

LNG, or liquefied natural gas, is produced in Texas often as a byproduct of oil extraction. In general, natural gas prices have been low, so there are higher returns for the export of natural gas, which is supercooled and compressed into LNG through a liquefaction process, and shipped to countries without a domestic supply. 

Karpowership owns and operates about 50 powerships — or floating power plants — with a combined energy capacity of 10,000 megawatts. The company also manages nearly a dozen LNG terminal ship conversion units. 

Karpowership’s Kinetics affiliate signed a deal in July 2025 to build a floating data center for Japanese ship builder Mitsui OSK Lines, powered by LNG with capacity up to 73 megawatts by 2027. The idea is to retrofit existing vessels as stand-alone power plants capable of housing a watertight data center. There’s a massive projected demand for the U.S. power grid to support data centers that enable generative artificial intelligence, especially in Texas. 

In mid-April, the Brownsville Navigation District Board authorized executives to negotiate an expanded lease agreement covering 713 acres with Karpower Valley. The value of that lease was not immediately available. 

The first phase of the project would cost $1.5 billion, support 230 construction jobs, and hire between 75 and 100 workers. The second phase would support between 600 and 900 construction jobs and require between 300 and 400 workers for manufacturing, pre-assembly, and shipbuilding.

Construction is expected to begin by the end of the year for the first phase, with the second and third phases beginning in 2027 or 2028. 

Since that deal is still being negotiated, the board declined to be interviewed for this news story. Karpower Valley’s newest executive, Clint Harp, who leads U.S. operations and is based in Austin, did not respond to a request for comment. 

There’s already a Karpowership and LNG terminal vessel docked at the Karpower Valley shipyard. In March, LNGT Europe, the LNG terminal vessel, docked at the site. 

Karpower Valley is in the process of hiring workers — some of whom previously worked at the Seatrium AmFELS yard, according to the port. 

Seatrium AmFELS laid off 91 workers at the site in November 2025, in both skilled trades and administrative roles, state records show. The shipyard is also a state Enterprise Zone project, through which the company could receive economic incentives for job creation and retention. 

“Shipbuilding has long been a foundational industry at the Port of Brownsville, and we’re proud to see that legacy continue to evolve now with Karpower,” port officials said in a statement.