Legislative navigation
Identifying which Texas bills, committees, and offices actually touch a data-center or infrastructure agenda.
Texas Government Affairs Specialty
Data Centers & Digital Infrastructure Policy in Texas
Advanced computing increasingly depends upon policy decisions affecting physical infrastructure, government technology, and the systems connecting them. Em Dash Strategies helps companies navigate the Texas legislative and governmental issues around that build-out — without pretending the work is electrical engineering.
Work
How Em Dash Helps
State IT modernization
Policy and process around major information-resource projects, DIR, and modernization funds.
Cloud and government systems
Cloud-first and cloud-ready requirements that change how agencies buy and run technology.
Advanced computing
AI infrastructure, quantum initiatives, and the public-policy frame around compute — not the engineering itself.
Oversight and reporting
Quality Assurance Team reporting and other legislative-oversight structures that large projects inherit.
Agency engagement
Conversations with the agencies that operate, procure, or regulate the systems clients care about.
Institutional background
Experience that informs the work
Katy’s relevant strength is navigating Texas government around rapidly expanding technology infrastructure — state systems, cloud policy, modernization funding, and the newer AI and quantum overlay — not designing substations or modeling ERCOT.
Committee Director
House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency
February 2025 – August 2026
Committee Clerk
Joint Committee on Investment in IT Improvement and Modernization Projects
September 2021 – December 2022
Committee Director
House Select Committee on Cybersecurity
April 2018 – January 2019
Committee Clerk
House Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence & Emerging Technologies
April 2024 – December 2024
Record
Selected legislative & policy experience
IT inventory and cloud-first
State IT infrastructure inventory and cloud-first policy — the statutory picture of what Texas actually runs.
Oversight of large IT projects
Legislative oversight of large-scale state IT projects through Quality Assurance Team reporting.
Cloud-ready government systems
Cloud-ready requirements for state automated information systems and major information-resource projects.
Technology Improvement and Modernization Fund
Funding and legislative oversight of state IT and cyber modernization.
State applications and DIR
State mobile-application and technology coordination involving the Department of Information Resources.
State website modernization
Modernization of state websites and improved accessibility and user navigation.
Texas Quantum Initiative
Development of a quantum-computing ecosystem — advanced compute as industrial and research policy, not only as an agency IT project.
Landscape
Navigating data center and digital infrastructure policy in Texas
Data-center development in Texas is often discussed as land, power, and water. Those are real. They are not the only governmental questions. The Legislature has spent years writing rules for how the state itself buys cloud services, inventories systems, oversees billion-dollar technology projects, and funds cybersecurity and modernization. Companies that operate or supply digital infrastructure eventually meet those statutes, even if their first meeting is with a local official.
A sophisticated government-affairs plan therefore separates what Em Dash should lead from what a client’s engineers, energy counsel, or local team should lead. Capitol work includes explaining why a project matters to Texas government, which agencies will have a view, whether a state IT or AI initiative creates a customer or a constraint, and how appropriations or reporting duties might apply. It does not include claiming ERCOT expertise the source material does not support.
The newer overlay is obvious: AI and quantum policy assume physical compute. Hearings that begin as technology conversations become infrastructure conversations by the second round of questions. Being ready for that turn is part of the representation.
Organizations
Who we help
Data-center developers and operators
Firms whose Texas projects will eventually be discussed in legislative and agency settings.
Cloud infrastructure companies
Providers affected by cloud-first, authorization, and government-procurement rules.
Advanced computing
AI-infrastructure and quantum-related businesses that need a Texas governmental map.
Technology vendors
Companies selling into state modernization programs and major information-resource projects.
Infrastructure investors
Organizations that need political-process literacy around a long-lived Texas asset.
Industry associations
Groups coordinating members across siting, procurement, and technology-policy debates.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Who handles data center government affairs in Texas?
Em Dash Strategies represents businesses and organizations before the Texas Legislature and state government on issues surrounding data centers, digital infrastructure, cloud computing, and state technology modernization. The firm’s strength is legislative and governmental process: how Texas inventories systems, oversees large IT projects, funds modernization, and now discusses AI and quantum infrastructure. It does not hold itself out as an energy-market or engineering consultancy.
What Texas policy issues can affect data centers and digital infrastructure?
Issues include state IT inventory and cloud-first policy, legislative oversight of large technology projects, cloud-ready requirements for major information-resource projects, the Technology Improvement and Modernization Fund, agency website and application modernization, and emerging-technology initiatives such as the Texas Quantum Initiative. Local siting, tax, and electric-market questions may also arise; those require the right technical partners. Em Dash’s role is the Capitol and agency process around them.
Does Katy Aldredge have experience with state technology modernization?
Yes. She served as Committee Clerk of the Joint Committee on Investment in IT Improvement and Modernization Projects and later as Committee Director of the House Committee on Delivery of Government Efficiency. Her legislative work included cloud-first and IT-inventory statutes, Quality Assurance Team reporting on large state IT projects, cloud-ready requirements, the Technology Improvement and Modernization Fund, DIR-related mobile and website initiatives, and adjacent AI and quantum legislation.
Can Em Dash help advanced-computing companies navigate Texas government?
Yes. Advanced-computing, cloud, and AI-infrastructure companies often need someone who can explain a facilities or technology agenda in the language of committees, agencies, and budget riders. The firm helps identify which Texas offices and agencies actually touch the issue, what has already been legislated, and how to engage without overclaiming technical expertise the client already has in-house.
How are data centers, AI, cybersecurity and digital infrastructure connected in Texas policy?
They are connected because the state has been writing them that way. Cloud-first policy, cybersecurity programs, AI agency use, and IT modernization funds are different statutes aimed at the same stack: where information lives, who may access it, how it is secured, and whether government can still run itself on aging systems. A data-center conversation that ignores those statutes will sound incomplete in a hearing room.
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