en.Wedoany.com Reported - Crusoe and Lancium plan to build a 1-gigawatt (GW) data center campus in Childress County, Texas, dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) computing. The 270-acre campus is owned by Lancium, which will also develop and manage the site's energy infrastructure. Construction is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2026. The site will feature behind-the-meter solar and energy storage resources, and the data center will use a closed-loop cooling system to reduce water consumption. According to previous reports, Meta is expected to lease capacity from Crusoe at this Childress campus.
Childress is the second project for Crusoe and Lancium. The two companies previously co-developed a large campus in Abilene, Texas, which broke ground in 2024, with the first buildings coming online in 2025, and Microsoft will also lease some of its capacity. Crusoe co-founder and CEO Chase Lochmiller stated that this campus is a significant milestone in the company's commitment to Texas, and noted that the partnership model established with Lancium in Abilene made Childress a natural choice for the next site. He added, "For us, this is more than just a data center—it's a long-term commitment to this community, and we are proud to build the future here in Childress."
Lancium was founded in 2017 as a crypto mining company, initially deploying data centers at renewable energy sites such as wind farms to utilize excess electricity for crypto and high-performance computing hardware. Since then, the company has shifted to developing large-scale sites it calls "clean campuses," where other companies can build data centers on its land. Lancium CEO Michael McNamara said, "Childress is a natural next step in our partnership with Crusoe. Crusoe has been a great partner in building side by side in Abilene, and we are excited to bring the same model—and the jobs and investment that come with it—to the Childress community. We are committed to working with local stakeholders to advance a development model that meets the broader needs of the communities we will share for the long term." This week, Lancium also announced that QTS will develop an 11-building campus at its third site near Turkey, Hall County, Texas.
Crusoe, which started as a crypto mining company in 2018, has since transformed into a data center developer and AI cloud service provider, spinning off its crypto business in March 2025. The company plans to build a 1.8 GW campus in Wyoming, two sites in Missouri, and a natural gas-powered data center in Alberta, Canada. Crusoe recently exited a project in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was listed as a potential partner for a project in Nebraska. In February 2026, Crusoe announced it would deploy modular data centers at the Energy Vault technology hub in Snyder, Texas, with an initial expansion scale expected to reach 25 megawatts (MW). Crusoe launched its GPU cloud service from colocation facilities in 2023 and currently operates five cloud regions in the U.S. (Houston, Virginia, Nevada) and Europe (Iceland, Norway), partnering with companies such as Digital Realty, Equinix, atNorth, Polar, Israel's Anan Group, and Mega Or. The company says it has signed contracts for 4.9 GW of AI infrastructure, with a total development pipeline exceeding 40 GW (including signed projects and sites under active tenant negotiations).
Another crypto mining-turned-cloud service provider, Iren, also has a campus in Childress and is leasing its capacity to Microsoft.
