Crusoe: Cloud Company or Construction Kingpin?

Crusoe—the company behind the 1.2 GW Abilene, Texas buildout that's slated for OpenAI—has announced details of its next major datacenter project. Partnering with energy provider Tallgrass, which has a CO2 sequestration hub nearby, Crusoe is planning a 1.8 GW campus in southeastern Wyoming that's designed to expand to as much as 10 GW.

Crusoe itself won't necessarily be the anchor tenant in Wyoming, however. It's the first of many large-scale projects, a pipeline of more than 20 GW worth, according to last week's press release.

It's indicative of the business Crusoe has become. The company is a neocloud—a cloud provider specializing in GPUs for AI and HPC work—and like its peers, Crusoe started by offering computing resources to the cryptocurrency world. Much of its expertise built along the way, however, relates to datacenter construction, including tapping inexpensive energy sources.

A Construction Engine for Neoclouds

Neoclouds face a long-term question: With GPU scarcity abating, and with each GPU generation facing planned obsolescence due to NVIDIA's rapid-fire release schedule, how will they avoid commoditization? One option is to dig deeper into the enterprise world, offering broader services.

Crusoe seems to be positioned to go another way: becoming the construction engine that fuels other clouds' expansion. Crusoe still wants to be a cloud, but so far it's shining brightest as a real estate developer.

Crusoe's construction acumen is not new. Founded in 2018, the company aimed to take advantage of surplus natural gas that normally gets burned away. It's an available resource that the energy companies never expected to sell, so Crusoe reasoned it could become a cheap power source for cryptocurrency mining. This also gave Crusoe a climate-friendly angle, as its sites diminished natural gas flaring.

The company didn't start with massive campuses. It moved nimbly, installing modular datacenters in places like North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Modular buildouts are likewise being used at Abilene and are now a product line—Crusoe Spark—aimed at edge AI deployments. Crusoe also does some of its own manufacturing in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The company had been using that site as a repair shop; last year, it invested $10 million to expand that site into full-blown manufacturing for some of its proprietary gear, thus avoiding some supply chain and tariff issues.

Combined, the modular approach and vertical integration help Crusoe build rapidly. Speed, in turn, is likely the calling card that got Crusoe selected for Abilene project. Doubtless, the company will be quick to highlight its speed in developing the Wyoming site as well.

From Wyoming to Texas

Plenty more are on the way, it seems. The Wyoming announcement also added that Crusoe has broken ground on a separate, unspecified gigawatt-scale site. Candidates could include Amarillo and Childress in Texas, both of which have been mentioned by The Information before. Crusoe has also struck deals to eventually build in Alberta and Norway.

As The Information notes, Crusoe is now strategizing its project and funding just like a real estate developer, "borrowing to build an asset, then selling it to raise cash for the next one." Crusoe Cloud is still a long-term priority, however, to be funded by sales of the datacenters and power assets Crusoe intends to build. "It forecasts having about $30 billion in capital expenditures through 2030, with $18 billion in proceeds coming from selling stakes in data center developments," The Information reports.

Lots of names are involved with Abilene, reflecting the complexity of these deals. The project is sited at the Lancium Clean Campus, owned by energy infrastructure firm Lancium. To fund the eventual eight-building, 1.2 GW campus, Crusoe entered into a $15 billion joint venture with alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital and investment firm Primary Digital Infrastructure.

OpenAI is the eventual tenant, but it's going to lease from Oracle, not Crusoe itself. Oracle delivered NVIDIA GB200 racks to Abilene in June, according to OpenAI's recent blog.

Stargate Questions

Finally, Abilene counts as part of Stargate, the joint venture dedicated to building up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the U.S.

Stargate was announced in January 2025, at which point Abilene construction was already announced and underway. That makes Abilene a point of relative clarity amid what's become a murky Stargate picture.

The Wall Street Journal recently reportedly stalling due to discord between partners OpenAI and SoftBank. OpenAI responded to that report by announcing it's working with Oracle on projects exceeding 5 GW worth of AI infrastructure, including Abilene.

Futuriom Take: Crusoe's construction is a differentiator, something every neocloud will need as that sector matures. Construction is an expensive, complex process, but if Crusoe proves good at scale, it could help fund the company's cloud ambitions.