Crusoe Expands AI Data Center Campus in Abilene to 1.2 Gigawatts

SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ABILENE, TX / March 18, 2025 / - Today Crusoe, the industry’s first vertically integrated AI infrastructure provider, announced construction has begun on the next phase of its AI data center at the Lancium Clean Campus in Abilene, Texas. The second phase of construction, expected to be completed in mid-2026, includes six additional buildings, bringing the total facility to eight buildings, approximately 4 million square feet, and a total power capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW). With this announcement, Crusoe's total data center footprint will reach more than 1.6 GW under operations and construction with an additional pipeline exceeding 10 GW in development.  

Crusoe began constructing the AI data center in Abilene in June 2024. The initial phase, comprising two buildings at 980,000 square feet and 200+ megawatts, is expected to be energized in the first half of 2025. Designed and built by Crusoe at the Lancium Clean Campus, the project incorporates innovative data center design to support powerful AI workloads. Each building is designed to operate up to 50,000 NVIDIA GB200 NVL72s on a single integrated network fabric, advancing the frontier of data center design and scale for AI training and inference workloads. The construction site has approximately 2,000 people working on the project daily and is expected to reach nearly 5,000 as a result of the expansion. The Development Corporation of Abilene (DCOA) has previously estimated that the direct and indirect economic impact of the initial phase of the project is approximately $1 billion over 20 years. This expansion has the potential to scale that impact by many magnitudes. 

“Our expansion in Abilene marks a significant milestone for the industry. The sheer scale of  compute power concentrated here is remarkable, defining an entirely new category for digital infrastructure, the AI factory. Bringing this facility to life will enable intelligence to be manufactured with unprecedented speed and scale. Crusoe is proud to provide the infrastructure that will advance humanity forward by accelerating the proliferation and ambitions of AI,” said Chase Lochmiller, Co-founder & CEO of Crusoe.

“Integrating our accelerated computing platform into Crusoe’s AI data center will drive the next giant leap in AI, while keeping sustainability in mind,” said Shar Narasimhan, director of data center GPUs and AI at NVIDIA. “The Abilene campus will help drive breakthroughs across a variety of industries and accelerate large-scale AI training and inference.”

“Operating data centers at this scale and beyond demands campus level innovation to ensure grid reliability under all workloads.  We are very excited to showcase the Lancium Clean Campus and energy services model that pairs new behind the meter resources with the grid interconnect to transform large loads from potential risks to robust grid assets,”  said Michael McNamara, Co-founder and CEO of Lancium.

Lancium’s end-to-end solutions include land acquisition, grid interconnect, site engineering, renewables interconnect, and power orchestration. In addition to the 1.2 GW grid interconnection, Lancium’s power plan for the site includes large-scale behind-the-meter battery storage and solar resources, which serve to ensure grid reliability, and economic and carbon optimization.  The campus will also leverage abundant proximate wind resources and incentivize new greenfield renewable power development. 

The availability of low-carbon energy factored heavily into site selection, as it is central to Crusoe’s climate-aligned mission and energy-first approach to powering AI infrastructure. The data center will also feature natural gas turbines to power its back-up power supply. It will feature direct-to-chip liquid cooling via a zero-water evaporation cooling system that continuously recirculates water through a closed-loop system.  

“The Crusoe expansion at the the Lancium Clean Campus represents a new era of innovation for Abilene,” said Abilene Mayor Weldon Hurt. “These positions will allow families to build their futures right here in West Texas.”

“This additional tax revenue investment in our future will directly benefit the people of Taylor County by boosting key emergency services, strengthening our infrastructure, and keeping important County programs going that help our residents,” said Taylor County Judge Phil Crowley. 

“Our mission at the Development Corporation of Abilene is to build the future of Abilene by attracting industries that drive economic growth and create high-quality jobs,” said Misty Mayo, President and CEO of the Development Corporation of Abilene. “The Crusoe project at the Lancium Clean Campus is a testament to the strength of the Abilene & Taylor County economy, the long-term vision of our community.”

This project reflects Crusoe and Lancium’s commitment to lead the industry in sustainability and community stewardship.

About Crusoe 

Crusoe is on a mission to align the future of computing with the future of the climate. Crusoe provides a reliable, scalable, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly solution for AI infrastructure by harnessing large-scale clean energy, building AI-optimized data centers, and empowering builders to reach their AI potential. Crusoe is empowering the AI revolution. 

About Lancium

Headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, Lancium is an energy technology and infrastructure company dedicated to accelerating the energy transition, while enabling the scale and speed required by hyperscale AI companies and balancing and stabilizing the power grid. The Lancium Clean Campus and energy management services are designed to provide low-cost, green energy at mega-scale for AI data centers.  For more information, visit www.lancium.com. Follow Lancium on social media: LinkedIn

About the Development Corporation of Abilene

The DCOA is the economic development driver of Abilene, Texas with the goal to build the future Abilene by attracting and sustaining industries that support job creation, foster strong business, and ensure a prosperous community. The DCOA is focused on the future success of the community and leverages the DevelopAbilene partnership to market Abilene as the premier location for business expansion. Learn more about the DCOA and DevelopAbilene at www.developabilene.com or @DevelopAbilene.