Crusoe, an eight-year-old Denver-based data center developer recently valued at $30.9 billion, confirmed Friday that it has sold an unfinished data center project in southeastern Wyoming to Google.
Google, which Crusoe had unsuccessfully attempted to become a client of the project, is taking over development after reportedly raising concerns about its cost and construction schedule under Crusoe’s leadership.
Crusoe initially announced the project last year with Blackstone-backed infrastructure company Tallgrass planning to eventually expand it to 10 gigawatts of electrical capacity.
Google did not reveal how much it paid Crusoe for the unfinished project, but announced plans to invest $17 billion to develop the data center campus.
The deal highlights how difficult it can be for independent data center developers to deliver massive projects on time and on budget, given the challenges of securing equipment and power. Growing opposition from local communities may further complicate development.
Despite taking over the Wyoming facility, Google has not completely given up on working with Crusoe. Crusoe is developing another data center for Google near Amarillo, Texas.
The deal to sell the site to Google was first reported by Bloomberg in June, but the Wyoming setback didn’t stop Crusoe from raising a $3.9 billion fundraising round in September.
Crusoe makes money by renting space in its data center to customers who bring their own GPUs, renting its own GPUs, and selling the computing power used to run AI models, called inference.
Crusoe’s biggest projects serve some of the biggest names in AI. Its campus in Abilene, Texas, is being built in stages for Oracle and OpenAI, and the company is also building a separate 900-megawatt campus next door for Microsoft, with its first building expected to come online in mid-2027. Meta is also a customer and Bloomberg reported that trading company Jane Street had signed a five-year, $13 billion cloud deal with Crusoe.
Crusoe was founded by Chase Lochmiller, now CEO, and Cully Cavness, who launched it as a natural gas-powered cryptocurrency mining business that otherwise would have been burned. In September, along with its $3.9 billion funding round, the company added three board members, including JB Straubel, founder of Redwood Materials and a Tesla board member who invested in Crusoe in 2021. Crusoe then became the first customer of Straubel’s energy storage business.
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