Crusoe Abilene Expansion Under construction
Data center by Microsoft in Abilene, Texas. Under construction.
Key facts
- Operator
- Microsoft
- Owner
- Microsoft
- Location
- Abilene, Texas
- Stage today
- Under construction
Source
read 2026-08-14
What to do next
Next step: Under construction — pull the approved conditions and permits and hold the builder to them; an expansion or a new building reopens the record.
What has happened so far (14 events)
- 2024-07-26announcement
Crusoe Energy Systems announced it is building a 200 MW data center at the Lancium Clean Campus outside Abilene, Texas. · source - 2024-10-15financing
Crusoe Energy Systems, Blue Owl Capital, and Primary Digital Infrastructure announced a $3.4 billion joint venture to fund and operate a 206 MW data center in Abilene, Texas. · source - 2024-11-21financing
Blackstone closed a $500 million equity investment in Lancium, whose first campus in Abilene is slated to come online in 2025; the Lancium project was originally announced in 2021 for cryptocurrency mining before pivoting to AI. · source - 2024-11-21financing
An SEC filing showed Crusoe Energy secured $686 million of a targeted $818 million raise from 70 investors; the Abilene campus is expected to be leased to Oracle, which will in turn rent it to Microsoft and OpenAI. · source - 2025-01-22announcement
OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle announced the Stargate project at the White House, a venture to invest up to $500 billion in AI data center infrastructure including 10 data centers, with one already under construction in Texas. · source - 2025-02-06construction
OpenAI confirmed it was breaking ground on Stargate's first site in Abilene, with a requirement to create at least 57 full-time positions earning an average wage of $57,600 annually; OpenAI VP Chris Lehane called Texas 'the flagship' for the venture. · source - 2025-02-06financing
Newmark arranged $2.3 billion in financing for the 206 MW Abilene data center on behalf of Blue Owl Capital, Crusoe Energy Systems, and Primary Digital Infrastructure. · source - 2025-03-07announcement
The Abilene Stargate site was expected to house 64,000 Nvidia GB200 chips by end of 2026, with an initial 16,000-chip deployment targeted for summer 2025; Oracle was reported to be in charge of operating the supercomputer. · source - 2025-06-01construction
In June 2025, Crusoe, Blue Owl Capital, and Primary Digital Infrastructure entered the second phase of a $15 billion joint venture for a 1.2 GW data center in Abilene; construction on six additional buildings began in March 2025, targeted to go live by mid-2026. · source - 2025-09-24announcement
At a press conference in Abilene, OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank announced five new Stargate data center sites totaling 7 GW, including an additional 600 MW expansion near the original Abilene location. · source - 2026-03-06withdrawal
Bloomberg reported that Oracle and OpenAI ended plans to expand the flagship Abilene data center amid financing complexity and revised demand assumptions. · source - 2026-03-27announcement
Crusoe announced a 900 MW expansion of its Abilene AI campus as an 'AI Factory' for Microsoft, with behind-the-meter power generation and battery storage, bringing total planned campus capacity to approximately 2.1 GW. · source - 2026-06-25coverage
Data Center Knowledge reported that Crusoe is adding a 900 MW AI data center to its Abilene campus for Microsoft, bringing total planned capacity to 2.1 GW, as part of a broader analysis of Texas becoming the largest data center market. · source - 2026-06-30report
A Stargate progress report noted the 1,100-acre Abilene campus moved from groundworks to energization faster than comparable campuses but suffered weather-related outages; Microsoft partnered with Crusoe to develop additional buildings, transforming the site into a multi-tenant AI infrastructure hub. · source
Find the paper trail
Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)
State environmental permits
Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.
- Texas TCEQ — Air Permits DivisionThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
- TCEQ Central RegistrySearchable public filings — search the operator, the shell LLC on the deed, and the address.
County & town filings
The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.
- Search Abilene planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
- Search Abilene property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.
Utility & grid records
The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.
- ERCOT (Texas) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
- Public Utility Commission of Texas — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
- FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
- Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.
Federal databases
Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.
- EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 32.380, -99.770 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
- EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
- EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.
These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.
Recent news
13 stories tracked since 2026-05-29 across 8 outlets. 12× A community is pushing back on a nearby data center. 1× Water use for cooling is straining the local supply. Most recent: “OpenAI data center constructed in Abilene, Texas” (The Lufkin Daily News, 2026-09-30).
- OpenAI data center constructed in Abilene, Texas
- How data center construction is impacting Abilene homeowners at ground zero
- FILE PHOTO: Tour of OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas
- FILE PHOTO: Tour of OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas
- Environmental impact of data centers in Abilene
- See Judge Crowley hear residents' complaints after Abilene data center forum
- In photos, discussion and demonstration over data centers in Abilene
- Data centers in Abilene: A community conversation
- Data centers in Abilene: A community conversation
- Rep. Talarico calls for data center accountability amid Abilene residents’ concerns
- Officials say data centers can boost local economies. In Abilene, they have spurred a housing crisis
- Officials say data centers can boost local economies. In Abilene, they have spurred a housing crisis
+1 more on the story tracker.
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 13 headlines archived.
Around here
- Texas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.
Other tracked projects in Texas
- OpenAI Stargate Shackelford — Shackelford County, 0 mi Under construction
- Stargate Abilene — Abilene (Taylor County), 5 mi Approved
- Vantage Frontier — Shackelford County, 34 mi Under construction
- Google West Texas campuses — Haskell County (+ Armstrong Co.), 54 mi Approved
- Coreweave Helios — Afton (Dickens County), 106 mi
Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Crusoe Abilene Expansion”, aigridwatch.com/projects/crusoe-abilene-expansion, retrieved 2026-10-11.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.
Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).